ABSTRACT
The basic conflict in the previous chapter arose over the function of the caseworker. Should the caseworker provide therapy, that is to say, help people to come to terms with the reality of their social situation? Or is the essential casework function that of reform or revolution, that is to say, radically changing the structure of society so that it can be experienced as a community? That this conflict is central not only for casework, but for our culture generally, can be seen from the following perceptive comment by Bantock (1960, p. 71):
Behind this conflict over reform or therapy, of which Barbara Wootton’s book is only one example, we note, it seems to me, a fundamental cleavage of opinion in the modern world arising out of two quite distinct assessments of human nature. Behind the concern for therapy lies Freud’s sombre theory of the human situation, one involving the conflict between individual, instinctual biological urges, and the demands of social life. The pleasure principle and the reality principle are, even at best, in an uneasy relationship, necessitating on the part of the individual, repression and sublimation, and resting on the precarious strength of the ego structure…. The other view is more optimistic in outlook. It tends to dissolve human personality into a set of potential social attributes, and thus never loses sight of the possibility that social changes may be
brought about which will reflect men’s needs more fully, or that harmonious adjustment between individual desire and social reality may be possible.
