Abstract
One of the most pernicious legacies of Freudianism to social work has been the treatment of individual and society as if they were unrelated abstractions. The conceptual difficulties caused by this dichotomy are not peculiar to social work but take on a special significance because of our traditionally emphatic espousal of human subjectivity. One of the main themes of this part of the book will be the way in which this bias towards the individual lies at the root of much that is wrong with social work and that our capacity to understand and maintain relationships depends upon a comprehension of people not as individuals but as social beings.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes and references
R. Williams, The Long Revolution (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965) ch. 3.
R. Pinker, Social Theory and Social Policy (London: Heinemann, 1971) p. 170.
The potential client population among children is delineated by P. Wedge and H. Prosser, Born to Fail (London: Arrow, 1973). Selwyn Smith found a higher incidence of non-accidental injury to children in working-class families; see his The Battered Child Syndrome (London: Butterworth, 1975) p. 198.
J. Packman, Decisions in Child Care (London: Allen and Unwin, 1969).
B. Davies, I. Barton, A. Macmillan, Variations in Children’s Services (London: Bell, 1972).
Bill Jordan, Poor Parents (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974) chs 1, 2.
G. Konrad, The Caseworker (London: Heinemann, 1976) p. 16.
M. Simpkin, ‘Clients in the Community’, in R. Jenkins, M. Aldridge and R. Thorpe (eds), Working in the Community, Social Work Studies no. 1 (University of Nottingham, 1975) p. 94.
For a critical discussion of Bernstein’s work, see H. Rosen, Language and Class (Bristol: Falling Wall Press, 1974).
Jim Slater, Return to Go (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1977) p. 228.
P. Janet, La Force et faiblesse psychologique (Paris: Maloine, 1932) p. 258.
I. Reid, Social Class Differences in Britain (London: Open Books, 1977).
P. Kinnersley, Hazards of Work (London: Pluto Press, 1974).
Factory Inspectorate, Annual Report 1974 (London: H. M. S. O.). See also Dr G. Ffrench, Occupational Health (Lancaster: Medical and Technical Publications, 1973) pp. 62–4, who adds that many of the 7000 annual fatal accidents in the home can be attributed to poor design or cheap production.
P. Powell et al., 2,000 Accidents: a shop-floor study of their causes (London: National Institute of Industrial Psychology, 1971).
Health and Safety Executive, The Explosion at the Appleby-Frodingham Steelworks, Scunthorpe, 4 November 1975 (London: H. M. S. O., 1976) p. 28.
P. Lomas et al., Poverty and Schizophrenia (London: Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association, 1973).
E. M. Goldberg and S. L. Morrison, ‘Schizophrenia and Social Class’, British Journal of Psychiatry, no. 109, November 1963, pp. 785–802. See also R. Turner and M. Wagenfeld, ‘Occupational Mobility and Schizophrenia’, American Sociological Review, vol 32 (1967) pp. 104–13.
A summary of S. Michael and T. Langner, ‘Psychiatric Symptoms and Social Class’, Diseases of the Nervous System, vol 24 (1963) p. 128,
by Myre Sim in his A Guide to Psychiatry (Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone, 1974) p. 668.
A. B. Hollingshead and F. C. Redlich, Social Class and Mental Illness (New York: Wiley, 1958).
J. Myers and L. Bean, A Decade Later (New York: Wiley, 1968).
J. Westergaard and H. Resler, Class in a Capitalist Society (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976).
G. Fiegehen, P. Lansley and G. Smith, Poverty and Progress in Britain 1953–73 (Cambridge University Press, 1977).
M. Seeman, ‘On the Meaning of Alienation’, American Sociological Review, vol. 24 (1959) p. 784.
Copyright information
© 1979 Mike Simpkin
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Simpkin, M. (1979). Not clients but workers. In: Trapped within Welfare. Crisis Points. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-86133-0_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-86133-0_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-23177-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-86133-0
eBook Packages: Palgrave Social & Cultural Studies CollectionSocial Sciences (R0)