ABSTRACT
Social work is a professional endeavour, which focuses on the process of understanding other people. Social work is not a fixed activity; the rules are continually changing and shift with the meanings and the motives current in society. The double bind that currently confronts the profession rests on the need to reconcile and respond to the public scrutiny aspect of practice with the humanistic ideals on which the profession was developed. “Social work is quintessentially a humanist activity. In a society that is increasingly materialistic and governed in terms of economic rather than social values, humanism is challenged as never before” (Powell, 1999, p. 14).
