ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how a working class woman with a learning disability and problems with managing household bills became cooperatively involved in a social work process. It firmly challenges a longstanding myth still perpetuated in a modern textbook (Payne, 2014), that casework is only useful for the articulate client who is interested and able to reflect on her feelings and is not for working class clients beset with practical problems. The analysis of the case example in the chapter demonstrates on clear theoretical grounds, as well as in practice, why effective client engagement in the social work process is in no way dependent on any prior capacity to reflect on, or to articulate, emotional difficulties. Miss M was hugely obese and exuded personal neglect, with grimy hands, shabby, soiled and greasy clothes, and a fetid body odour. She wore thick-lensed glasses to correct a heavy squint and seemed to have a mild congenital learning disability.
