ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author provides developments linked to the relational turn in psychoanalysis to try and put some more flesh upon what Anna Yeatman calls a "post-liberal" or "post patrimonial model" of professional practice. He suggests that existing critiques of welfare practice nevertheless still contain weaknesses and limitations. The author argues that the relational turn in psychoanalysis is leading psychoanalysis towards a more dialogical model of professional practice. Professional practice arises in conditions of advancing modernity that privilege creden-tialed expertise. In the public realm of welfare practice, as opposed to the more private domain of psychoanalysis, this transparency also implies accountability, and accountability not just to one's own profession but more directly to the users and potential users of the service being provided. The professional is seen unproblematically as the "one who knows", but this knowing is situated in the context of an ethical relationship to the other, the one who is known.
