This paper is devoted to the moral and social presuppositions and implications of casework, which revolves around the dual concern of the social worker for 'two welfares'-that of the individual and that of society. The basic problem to be discussed in...
This paper is devoted to the moral and social presuppositions and implications of casework, which revolves around the dual concern of the social worker for 'two welfares'-that of the individual and that of society. The basic problem to be discussed in this study whether a casework theorist can offer a satisfactory account of this dual concern in terms of the concepts which they use to work with mental health of the individual on the one hand, and the moral, cultural claims of society on the other.
The concept of mental health, according to Erich Fromm, depends on the concept of the nature of man. Those needs which he shares with the animal are important. But even their complete satisfaction is not a sufficient condition for sanity and mental health. These depend on the satisfaction of those needs and passions which are specifically human, and which stem from the conditions of the human situation: The need for relatedness, transcendence, rootedness, the need for a sense of identity and the need for a frame of orientation and devotion.
Man's solution to his physiological need is, psychologically speaking, utterly simple; the difficulty here is a purely sociological and economic one. Man's solution to his human needs is exceedingly complex, it depends on many factors and last, not least, on the way his society is organized and how this organization determines the human relations within it.
An understand of this relationship poses problems in moral and social philosophy. The concern of moral philosophy here, is over the relationship which the casework deems to hold between the individual's moral standards based upon his own decision abd reflection, and those which are present in the structured role morality of the society in which that individual lives.
Mental health and illness, as T. Szasz says, are new words fo rdescribing moral valuls and hence casework involves moral and social commitment. What is clear, however, is that implicitly at least the theory and practice of social casework raise in an immediate and important manner some of the most difficult problems of social and moral theory and it could also be argued that the caseworker is more involved with social and political commitments of one form or another than the average citizen or the average worker.