ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the use of feminist relational concepts in the client-worker relationship. Since social work's mission involves change, this would include using the professional relationship in ways that move clients out of their isolation, out of destructive relationships, and into connections that are more growth producing. A feminist relational viewpoint places emphasis on relational yearnings as normative, not only connected to unresolved residues of childhood, as some psychodynamic theorists have argued. In the feminist relational approach, the emphasis shifts from merely coping, to growth and empowerment. Perhaps if workers start by examining the use of self in the feminist relational approach, one can better understand how social work can make use of this fundamental idea. In the relational cultural approach, the use of self is bound up with notions of mutuality, authenticity, boundaries, self-disclosure, transference and countertransference issues, all of which are discussed in the chapter.
