Love and Social Work in the UK: A Critical Evaluation

Abstract

Recently social work scholars have been exploring the concept of love and social work. A focus on love takes social work back to its roots, reinforcing care for, sensitivity and responsiveness to, the feelings of service users and relationships between service users and practitioners. Some scholars see love operating not only at individual levels, but also with action elements at structural levels challenging power, inequality, and oppression. The recent work of various international writers about social work and love is summarised. However, the concept of love and social work raises important complex, critical questions which are tentatively considered in this article. The aims of the article are to explore the concept of love as applied to professional social work, to highlight its strengths and weaknesses and offer some critical perspectives. Other aims are to begin to explore linkages between love and some existing social work theories, concepts, and values and to consider the implications of love for social work practice in statutory contexts in the UK. The role of love in social work can offer ambitious and transformative possibilities, but ambivalence, contradictions and paradox are evident; there is a need for much more debate and research about its place in the discourses of social work.