The Limits and Art of Understanding in Social Work Practice

If quantity is an any way a measure of one's preoccupation with something, then the number of pages I devoted to the question of understanding in my book, Social Work Practice: A Unitary Approach (1973) was a sure indication of my concern at that time. Altogether, over eighty pages — more than one-third of the book — were given over to what I called, “The Strategies of Study and Evaluation.” Exhaustively, this section covered the phases of practice and the characteristics of the various client systems that are met in practice within each phase. Pure overkill: the attempt to cover the myriad data and details of this plan would be beyond the scope and time of any practitioner.