ABSTRACT
Understanding 'Understanding' is a term much used but little analysed in social work. Generally speaking, 'understanding' refers to the results of an exertion to use an idea or set of ideas to grasp a situation so that appropriate action (including contemplation, successfully conveying the sense of the situation to others) can be taken. The idea may be something relatively
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simple, such as 'I understand that now 1 see that is what X intended', or something more complex such as a theory ('I understand that in terms of Freud's instinct theory'). It is sometimes suggested that clients value a social worker's attempt to understand as much as his achievement in so doing. Social workers distinguish kinds of understanding: for example, between understanding derived from 'heart' knowledge or 'head' knowledge. Such a distinction is perhaps better seen as understanding from distinctive points of view, that of the participant and that of the experienced observer. These perspectives produce different understandings, but it is not the case that one is a deeper or superior version of the other. 'Understanding' is also an activity at the centre of much social legislation and of the work of those who devise, execute, or study social policy. The study of understanding (or hermeneutics) has much to offer our attempts to unravel this activity. Bauman, Z. (1978) Hermeneutics and Social Sclence, Hutchinson. Timms, N. and Timms, R. (1977) Perspectives in Social Work,
Routledge & Kegan Paul, pp. 135-9.
