the self, social work, technicist professional, reflexive worker

This paper aims at finding an answer to the question of how social workers perceive their own self in the practice of field social work with families. In the theoretical introduction of the paper, different theories related to the self of a social worker, which are perceived as intersecting, are presented. The text works with data from research focusing on critical reflexivity of social workers working with vulnerable children and their families. It is based on interviews and subsequent focus groups with twelve communication partners, field social workers working with families. The data was processed using the grounded theory of K. Charmaz. Within the communication partners' narrations, two opposing narratives of “the self of a good social worker” were formed, the “self” of a technicist professional versus the “self” of a reflexive worker. The created data is discussed from a psychoanalytic and psychosocial perspective with an emphasis on implications for the practice of social work.