Biographical Approach in Social Services: Voicing Emotions Through Practice and Operational Tools

The chapter will propose a reflection on the value of the biographical approach in social service, through the use of life stories and the experimentation of operational tools, such as emotional maps, to support and complement them. Through a research project on the university training paths of young people with a migration background, carried out at the University of Palermo, the migration phenomenon was analysed through the reconstruction of life stories following Bertaux's (1998) ethno-sociological perspective. Empowerment, "the liberation of people" characterising professional practices and declined by the global definition of social work (IASSW 2014), finds in the biographical approach and in the exploration of the emotional/emotional dimension through emotional maps, autopoietic tools for the transformation of reality (Davies, 1992, p.216) and the opening to new possible worlds. In this way, the reasons of the Other can be authentically listened to and understood, to the benefit of increasingly inclusive and effective professional interventions. The methodology and tools tested, it is believed, can be generalised and proposed to the professional community as social work practice and tools for social service training. The intention is, therefore, to propose reflections on processual and relational aspects of social practices that facilitate the expression of subjective and intersubjective dimensions. The results of the research, inserted in the vision of postmodern social service, have shown how the reconstruction of biographies of "offended" and "marginal" lives and the collection of emotional and emotional dimensions through emotional maps, allow us to open a profound parenthesis on the existence of the other, on the recognition of the other (Berne, 2018) and on the ability to voice while respecting each individuality and speciality.