ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an account of the author's experience in treating Miss Brady, a seventy-one year old, who had been diagnosed as being legally blind. It presents a three-way conversation that took place between the author, Brady, and Ms. Field, a home health aide. The conversation gave the author a sense of Miss Brady’s colorful personality, her articulate speech, and also the fear beneath her self-confident exterior. Based on this experience, the author felt that social workers can take on a filial role far more easily in home health care than in hospitals or nursing homes. Because patients in those places have so few personal relationships, they seek to develop one with staff members. The collective, implicit demands of these patients can overwhelm a social worker and lead him or her to limit contact to formal and professional interactions.
