The lament for caring

Abstract

Social work has always been considered an essentially humane and compassionate occupation, but as stress envelops its practitioners we have become increasingly incapable of relating even to each other. Personal expression is limited or distorted by statute and hierarchy; the writing of reports is more important and time-consuming than the encounters which supply their content. The feelings which Richard Titmuss once described as creative altruism, and which many thought were the mainspring of social work, have become subjected to an incessant process of covering oneself against mishap. An area officer in my department was recently heard to remark that if the paperwork is all right, everything is all right. I have already surveyed many of the factors which have created such turmoil but it is worth reiterating the dimension for which social workers have themselves been largely responsible, the consistent splitting of individuals from the groups of which they are constituents. On one hand we divorce ourselves from routine administration and continually castigate allegedly unfeeling bureaucrats, whether in local government or in the D. H. S. S.