PSYCHIATRIST-SOCIAL WORKER INTERRELATIONSHIP
MARIANNE HORNEY M. D.1
1 The New York Hospital and the department of psychiatry, Cornell University Medical College, New York.
This paper deals with the attitudes that the psychiatric and social work professions have towards each other. One notices an attempt on the part of the social workers to avoid the criticism of the psychiatrists by formulating an artificial distinction between the two overlapping fields. The social worker's position is made difficult by her being drawn into divergencies of schools of thought within the psychiatric profession.
The main practical point arising out of this interrelationship is the need to define cases that could be carried by social workers by the therapeutic need and approachability rather than by the degree of sickness. Difficulties relating to the management of psychiatric problems arising in case work approach are touched upon.
