Existentialism and Social Work

Book excerpt: Existentialism and Social Work provides a clearly-expressed and well-argued exposition of Sartrean existentialism as a theory base for social work practice. It introduces the key concepts and themes of the philosophy and relates them to social welfare theory and practice. Existentialism is a valuable means of making sense of many of the complexities, contradictions and dilemmas which social work staff encounter. The book explores the relationship between theory and practice and examines how existentialism can help to bridge the gap. A number of theoretical perspectives are evaluated from an existentialist perspective and links are drawn between Sartre’s philosophy and aspects of commonly used theories and methods. But this is not simply a theoretical analysis. Neil Thompson also explores the use of existentialism as a guide to day-to-day practice and draws up a set of Principles for Practice . The ultimate aim is to present existentialism as a concrete philosophy of praxis.