Much of the progress achieved by the women's movement now seems threatened by the combined effects of prolonged economic insecurity, reductions in the scope of welfare provision and a general shift in the climate of public opinion to the right. Social workers are faced with the growing damands of a more impoverished and more unstable society, with less resources to meet these demands. In response to these pressures, feminist social work has begun to move beyond some of the limitations of both the traditional and radical social work models of the past. The emerging anti-discriminatory model...

Therapeutic practice needs constant examination to ensure that it remains responsive and dynamic. Living organisms must communicate with their environment if they are to survive, and institutions are no different. This monograph, the second of the Cassell Hospital series, explores this concept further. By reading it, ideas and thinking will be sparked off that will help other organisations promote their own culture of enquiry.

-The Cassel Hospital offers a very different kind of treatment from that provided by -traditional- psychiatry. The stakes are high, and this can create anxiety and ambivalence about the work in staff and feelings of anger, hope, and hopelessness in the patients. The chapters in this Monograph give testimony to these feelings and also explore how they can be worked with and contained in the hospital community structures.- -- Lesley Day from the Introduction