Client-Worker Transactions

First published in 1970, Client-Worker Transactions challenges some aspects of current thinking about the client-worker relationship in social work. Traditionally, the worker’s treatment of the client’s social problems has been seen as something like a doctor’s treatment of a patient's illness. William Jordan argues that clients’ social problems often consist in their ability to affect the way other people behave towards them, and that this is frequently expressed in their relationship with the worker. In taking up the social work agency’s offer of help, they enter into an emotional transaction in which they hand over to the worker a part of themselves which they find hard to bear.

The book looks at examples of such transactions, their influence on the worker’s actions, and the ways in which they can be analysed in psychological and social work theory. It suggests that a defensive system against the transactional process is not the best basis for social work practice. This is an interesting historical reference work for the students of social work.