Emotional Knowledge for Child Welfare Practice: Rediscovering Our Roots

Abstract

Child protection is arguably in a state of crises, with indications that current approaches to practice are failing to protect children and support families. A variety of competing approaches have been put forward to address the current inadequacies, such as evidence‐based social work and antioppressive approaches to social work. These approaches to practice promote rational and technical analyses of social work with little attention to what lies beneath the surface in the encounter between social worker and client. In this paper we consider the value of psychoanalytic concepts for child protection practice. Notions of ambivalence, transference, and counter‐transference might offer a much needed source of insight for child protection practice that might help to address some of what has been lost in the field over the last few decades. This article was adapted from a chapter published as Davies, L. & Collings, S. (2004). Subject‐To‐Subject: Reclaiming the Emotional Terrain for Practice. In L. Davies and P. Leonard (Eds), Social Work in a corporate era: Practice of power and resistance. (pp 43–54). Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.