ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns critical avoidance in the academy, within the disciplinary area of social work studies. It explores the authors' perspectives on both sides of a critical avoidance divide. The chapter makes connection between the concept of critical avoidance and the experiences of mental health service users/survivors in British social work education. It focuses on two key areas of avoidance in the social work academy: suitability for social work training and underpinning knowledge for social work practice. The chapter also focuses on mental health service users/survivors – that is, people who use or receive mental health services. It argues that social work had failed to include service users and their organisations in the development of anti-oppressive theory and practice. The chapter also argues that academic education for the helping professions is underpinned by a foundational problem of avoidance in that it prepares students to perform assessments that separate those who are 'normal' from those who are not.
