ABSTRACT
Psychoanalytic social work devotes a great deal of attention to acting out. The work is carried out in a setting of which precisely this interplay of actions between social worker and client is the hallmark. Psychoanalysis has always from the very beginning been a psychology of conflict. The conflicts with which it is concerned are psychic conflicts. In psychoanalytic social work the awareness of countertransference and understanding of acted dialogues are particularly valuable because the clients in this setting usually have little ability to put inner processes and states into words. The concept of defence is a central element in psychoanalysis. Freud understood defence as the intrapsychic defence against the demands of the drives. Psychoanalytic social work is much concerned with producing and making available a holding environment, for example for children who have developed an antisocial tendency or for patients with psychiatric illnesses or who are in a state of social decompensation.
