Constructing Clienthood in Social Work and Human Services: Interaction, Identities and Practices (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781843100737)

This innovative book explores social work, therapy and counselling as a series of encounters - between clients and human services professionals, social workers, their colleagues and other professionals, and more widely between citizens and the state. Providing a variety of social constructionist perspectives on the idea of the 'client', it presents in-depth discussion of the roles, language and contexts of meetings between social workers and their clients.

International contributors present discussion on categorization, analysing identities and reflexive practice. Drawing data from a variety of sources, including meetings, client files and transcribed dialogues with clients, the book employs methods such as conversation and discourse analysis to propose new insights into what it means to be a client of the human services agency.

Bringing together a rich variety of data, this volume forms an important contribution to major debates on the nature of social work and counselling. As well as innovative approaches to theory and research, the implications for practice in social work and counselling are discussed. Challenging previously-held notions about clienthood, this book is a useful and thought-provoking resource for social workers, counsellors, policy makers, academics, researchers and students and trainers in social work and counselling.

Author: Chris Hall
ISBN-10: 1843100738
ISBN-13: 9781843100737
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, Ltd
Language: English
Published: 01/01/2004
Pages: 272
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.86lbs
Size: 9.21h x 6.14w x 0.58d