With communication and relationships at the core of social work, this book reveals the way it is foremost a practice that becomes reality in dialogue, illuminating some of the profession's key dilemmas. Applied discourse studies illustrate the importance of talk and interaction in the construction of everyday and institutional life.

This book provides a detailed review and illustration of the contribution of discourse approaches and studies on professional interaction to social work. Concentrating on how social workers carry out their work in everyday organisational encounters with...

Paul Holland is an unemployed graduate who has lost the keys to his future. He returns home from university to discover that he is surplus to requirements and slightly less useful than a paper umbrella. Lost in a world where all that anyone cares about is getting on and climbing the social ladder he embarks on an experiment to test himself against the world. He moves in with two other deadbeat graduates and becomes embroiled in a direct action group amassing in the streets of his home town. Whilst his friends descend into chaos and madness Paul tries to make sense of it all. A story about...