The Problem of the Problem Family

This scholarly review of concepts about "problem families" as expressed in practical schemes of help and in literature (the list of references given gives 154 titles) is a timely attempt to check current loose thinking and unsound practice. It also poses questions concerned with the social worker's dual responsibility to the client and to society. The term "problem family" covers all types of misfit from the subnormal mentally to the unstable intelligent, from the passive and easily led to the stubborn and resistive. The Family Service Units have made a great contribution to understanding these problems in emphasising that the approach must be individual and through a case-work relationship rather than merely administrative or educational. These are the constructive ideas, rather than the floor scrubbing, which caught the popular imagination.