Seeing the Person in the System: Reflections of an Applied Clinical Sociologist

By Dr Jessica Sneha Gray

When people ask what I do, I tell them that I’m an applied clinical sociologist. I can almost see the curiosity flicker across their face- it’s not a term you hear every day. To me, it means seeing the person within the system, and the system within the person. It’s about working with people and communities not as problems to be fixed, but as stories to be understood.

Applied clinical sociology is where reflection meets practice, where theory steps off the page and into real lives. It’s about standing with people in the complexity of their worlds and helping them find clarity, strength, and hope. It is work that requires empathy, courage, and truth-telling, but most of all, it requires humanness.

Health and the Human Spirit

As someone now pursuing further studies in psychology, I’ve come to appreciate how both sociology and psychology have something powerful to offer when it comes to healing. Psychology helps us understand the mind, the patterns, and the brain, and yes, there are times when deep neuropsychological understanding is essential. But in so many of the counselling and wellbeing issues I see, the causes aren’t simply within the person, they are around them.

Our environments, the relationships, systems, and energies we live within, shape our wellbeing. When our wairua is disturbed by conflict, envy, or disconnection, we feel it in our bodies. I do too. I’m not separate from it. There are moments when I’ve felt that same pain, when hate seems to win over love, when selfishness is rewarded over care. Those moments can dim something inside us.

But sociology has taught me that the path back to balance often begins with understanding the environment. When I can analyse what is happening around me, the systems, the expectations, the invisible rules, and consciously remove what doesn’t belong, I find peace again. I see this in clients as well. When they begin to name what is shaping them, rather than internalising it — something shifts.

This is why I believe that sociological principles belong inside therapy and sociotherapy. We need to integrate them more deliberately. Healing is not just an individual act; it’s a social process. And for true health equity, we have to stop treating people as isolated problems and start understanding the collective wounds that shape our distress.

Investigating with Care: What Darkness Teaches Us

My work often crosses into what might be called critical criminology exploring not just what people do, but why systems create the conditions for harm. It’s not about excusing behaviour, but about understanding it.

I was reminded of this recently while staying at a Department of Conservation hut during a family tramp through the Mangatepopo Valley. It was off-season, quiet, and the weather had turned moody. Among the few travellers there was one person who brought with them a strange heaviness. They criticised others, complained about the warden, and spread a subtle darkness through the space.

It was a small example, but a powerful one. I watched how that energy affected the atmosphere, how quickly unease spread, how laughter dimmed, and this person’s followers blindly pursuing and nodding “yes master”. And then, when they left, how light returned. Children played, people cooked together, laughter echoed again. The change was almost immediate.

That hut became, for me, a microcosm of society. It showed how one person’s self-absorption or bitterness can affect the wellbeing of a whole community, and how light, kindness, and respect can restore it. It reminded me of what I often see in my investigative and sociological work: whether it’s in geopolitical conflict, white-collar crime, or organisational dysfunction, the root is often the same, environments where ego, greed, and fear have replaced collective care.

Critical criminology asks us to question who we call “winners” in such systems. Who is really succeeding in a society that rewards selfishness over compassion, appearance over truth, and dominance over care? We become a society of captives, held not always by walls, but by distorted values.

The lesson is simple but profound: if we want to live in better societies, we must cultivate better environments ones where decency, respect, and empathy are not optional but essential. The darkness doesn’t disappear by fighting it; it disappears when we bring in more light.

Building Societies Worth Belonging To

The same principles guide my work with organisations, communities, and professionals. I often remind clients that change begins not with blame but with awareness. When people can step back and see the larger social forces shaping their struggles whether it’s inequity, burnout, or cultural disconnection they begin to reclaim agency.

I’ve worked in communities where resilience is strong, but trust has been eroded. I’ve worked with professionals who are deeply committed to care, yet caught in systems that exhaust them. My work is to help them see how structure and culture shape experience  and how, together, we can redesign those systems to serve humanity better.

Sociology, at its heart, is an act of care. It’s a way of paying attention  not only to what people say, but to what is happening around them. It’s about asking: What kind of society are we building? And are we building one where most can thrive?

Societal building isn’t grand or abstract; it happens in everyday moments in the way we listen, the way we lead, the way we show up for each other. Every space we enter becomes a reflection of our collective values. And each of us holds the power to make those spaces kinder, fairer, and truer.

The Thread of Humanness

If there’s one thread that runs through all of this, it’s humanness. Not perfection, not performance, humanness. The willingness to feel, to understand, to stand beside someone in truth.

That is what I aim to bring to my work, whether I am supporting a leader, analysing a system, mentoring a practitioner, or simply sitting with someone in pain. My practice is not about diagnosing people; it’s about helping them understand themselves in relation to the world, and the world in relation to them.

I’ve come to believe that sociology, at its best, is a bridge between understanding and action, between awareness and empathy, between despair and hope. And if I can help build that bridge in even one life, one organisation, or one community, then the work is worth it.

Because every time we choose truth over distortion, care over selfishness, and light over darkness, we take one small step toward a society that’s not just functioning -  but flourishing.