ABSTRACT
Strength to understand and to act upon one’s understanding comes only as one actually experiences and exercises the freedom to direct one’s own thoughts and behaviour—and that is what we mean by self-determination in casework practice. Some of the principles of casework practice rest upon scientific findings, others upon the accumulated experience and intuitions of our social and religious culture. There are many casework tools and methods but all are used in accordance with the underlying assumption that love must be strengthened and hostility or hate somehow bound, and that through this anxiety and fear will be lessened and energy for more satisfying living will be released. There is a set of assumptions or principles upon which casework rests—assumptions that have to do not with values and goals but with the relationship of casework to scientific method. Casework originally was based largely on intuition and common sense.
