ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses metaphors as basic elements of professional knowledge, centred on the example of social work. It considers the ways in which the field of social work can be characterized by the metaphorical knowledge it covers. The chapter develops the implications of the patterns of interpretation for the knowledge of professionals. It describes the method of systematic metaphor analysis by providing a link between the theory of Lakoff and Johnson and the methods of qualitative social research. The list of metaphorical concepts of social work applies only to the area of outreach social family assistance and re-interprets the studies from the standpoint of the sociology of professions in order to generate ideas for future research. The professional knowledge of social workers should be characterized as a network of cognitive constructs, in which certain aspects like self-definition and diagnosis are largely missing.
