ABSTRACT
Assessment is one of the most challenging areas of social work practice in mental health. The legitimate and understandable reluctance to assign a label, combined with uncertainty about the language and methods of psychiatric assessment, has led some social workers to neglect assessment altogether—a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. A social work perspective on assessment in mental health includes the individual focus, but has a broader field of vision: it also takes in the families, groups and communities in which individuals live, including issues related to culture, and the power relationships that impinge on or determine aspects of the life of the individual, family and group. The broader unit of attention for mental health assessment is consistent with contemporary approaches to psychiatry, in which the mainstream approach is usually described as ‘biopsychosocial’.
