Anxiety and child protection – implications for practitioner–parent relations
Lorraine Waterhouse,
Janice McGhee,
Corresponding Author
Lorraine Waterhouse
Professor,
Lorraine Waterhouse,School of Social and Political Science,University of Edinburgh,Chrystal Macmillan Building,15A George Square,Edinburgh EH8 9LD,UKE-mail: [email protected]Search for more papers by this authorJanice McGhee
Senior Lecturer, School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
Search for more papers by this authorLorraine Waterhouse,
Janice McGhee,
Corresponding Author
Lorraine Waterhouse
Professor,
Lorraine Waterhouse,School of Social and Political Science,University of Edinburgh,Chrystal Macmillan Building,15A George Square,Edinburgh EH8 9LD,UKE-mail: [email protected]Search for more papers by this authorJanice McGhee
Senior Lecturer, School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
Search for more papers by this authorABSTRACT
Social work practitioners face powerful existential threats in child protection. Core aspects of anxiety and their significance for practitioner–parent relations are identified. Social and psychoanalytic theories are utilized to suggest that the production of anxiety in child protection stems from multiple sources and that insufficient attention has been paid to the social context of poverty and disadvantage. Menzies' core analytic categories of primary and secondary anxiety are applied and extended to take account of specific dimensions of the social and organizational context of child protection practice for social work. Processing the anxiety is central to practitioner–parent relations that lie at the heart of the protection of children.
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