Social Psychology and Social Casework

Abstract

T HE hiatus between social psychology and social work is most unfortunate, but it can be closed at the level of both theory and practice to their mutual benefit. The reestablishment of the section of Sociology and Social Work augurs for better cooperation in the future. Since the scope of social work is too large to handle in a brief paper, my chief emphasis will be on the relations of social psychology to social casework. As a basis for improving the communication between these two areas of interest and activity, it will be well to delimit each field. Social psychology is concerned with personality acting and reacting in a matrix of society and its culture. The key concept is interaction and the central theme is the individual's role and status in the situation or field of interacting individuals. One aim of social psychology, as of like sciences, is an understanding and analysis of events with an eye either to the reconstruction of the past or to the making of predictions of varying probability regarding future events. The statement that one purpose of science is prediction and control is not quite accurate. The functions of control rest not with the scientist per se but with the policy makers in regard to public and private action. This comment regarding control gives the cue to an examination of the nature of social work. Broadly conceived the theory and practice of social work fall definitely within the scope of social control and social action. Social workers may or may not employ the findings of science as a means to their ends, but their central concern is welfare. The history of social work reveals some shift from the philanthropic, Lady Bountiful, and religiously oriented philosophy to a more secular theory and practice. Yet the