Comments by
Dr. Carlton Munson

2008 Knee/Wittman Achievement Awards Ceremony and Reception
October 8, 2008

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I thank NASW and the NASW foundation for the Knee/Wittman Outstanding Achievement in Health and Mental I Health Policy Award. It is an honor to be recognized by my professional organization in this way, and I hope I can continue to live up to the faith and confidence expressed in the bestowing of this award. I want to thank Ruth Knee and Milt Wittman for their contributions and NASW’s acknowledgement of their contributions through sponsoring this award program.  This award is especially meaningful to me because I knew Milt Wittman.

There are several people I need to thank for their help on my professional journey. I want to thank my wife, Joan, who has been there every step of the way supporting and assisting me in my finer and not so fine moments. Dr. Harris Chaiklin has been an inspiration throughout my career. Dr. Ruth Young skillfully and dutifully served as my teacher and dissertation advisor. Dr. Hans Falck and Dr. Verl Lewis were also inspirational teachers.

I was asked to comment on my accomplishments. I am proud of my work on international child abduction cases. I am proud of my book about the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual  of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revisions. After the release of the DSM-IV-TR in 2000, my book was the only DSM-IV-TR guide available on how to use the manual for over a year.

There are two fundamental accomplishments that outweigh all others. My work with clients and my work with students. I am proud that I have helped children and their families find hope and opportunity in a world that handed them overwhelming adversity. I have taught thousands of students at the bachelors, masters, and doctoral levels of education. I feel gratification that there are many practitioners and educators I have helped mentor who are toiling to help others and teach others in an effort to promote healing, health, and happiness. That I have had an impact on healing,the helping, and the teaching of others makes me feel the warmest inside. Reflecting on this contribution I feel humbled more than proud.

I have had the opportunity to practice and teach social work in various parts of this country and abroad. In that voyage I have been blessed with many mentors.  One of my clients who was having a rough time of things in his professional life came to the conclusion he had been the product of “persistent defective mentoring.” He is not a social worker. Social work has a strong mentoring orientation as a fundamental part of education that becomes engrained in our careers through being mentored and being mentors. My client’s comment and receiving this award caused me to think about my mentors. There are many types of mentors. Sometimes we do not recognize or acknowledge people who mentor unless we deliberately stop to reflect about mentoring history. I was going to read you the names of my mentors, but the list got too long. I did make a list and there are 29 people on the list and it is growing. I believe that to be relevant in our work in this rapid changing modern world, we must have mentors even when we get as old as I am.

One mentor I do want to mention in more detail, Dr. Milt Wittman. I met Dr. Wittman when I was a student at University of Maryland in the 1970s. I attended trainings he performed, and I participated in conferences and meetings with him. When you encountered Milt at meetings he would always stop and inquire about you even when he was rushed to get to a session.

Milt was a true scholar and a reflective thinker. He would analyze a question and frame his answers in a logical and challenging manner. He always had a smile, a twinkle in his eye, a brisk walk, and spoke with a crispness and urgency of his professional mission. You always felt Milt was on a mission. There is only time for one example of his many missions. One mission he wrote much about was prevention. We would do well to take a new look at Dr. Wittman’s writing on prevention.

Mentors are the backbone of awards like the Knee/Wittman award. So think about the importance of mentoring to others who approach you and opportunities to mentor. That is the message I would like to leave you with today.