ABSTRACT
The issue of efficient action in social work can constitute a major challenge, so big is the crisis in that sector, both in respect of the issue of its purpose and that of the relevance of its implementation methods. “Social work” is society involvement with itself to alleviate such individual suffering and to restore the social bond, harmed by too many departures from community ideals and by too many labour conflicts. Historically social workers were first health and educational counsellors, and it was only that their action took a deliberate psychological turn. The “psychological know-how” involved in the individual relationship seems, in the eyes of some people, to arise both from oneself and professional ideology and from rational and thought out action. Most of the social workers’work takes place in the framework of clearly identifiable institutions ; none has an individual mandate, none is self-employed.
