Love, Hate and Welfare

AGREED WITH AUTHOR

This book presents a psychosocial examination of the changing relationships between users of services, professionals and managers in the post-war welfare state. It challenges the current emphasis on consumer rights by linking social responsibility to its psychosocial roots and breaks new ground in theorising the links between the intimate day-to-day experiences of care and the development of social policy.

Love, hate and welfare:

characterises psychosocial dimensions of social citizenship, consumerism, partnerships and active welfare;

develops practice-based perspectives on changing social relations of care;

discusses the psychic dimensions of entitlement, risk, responsibility, compassion and dependency in the welfare system;

develops a grid to link the interpersonal, institutional and sociopolitical dimensions of successive post-war welfare settlements;

explores the potential contribution of psychoanalytic concepts to social policy and practice.

This book is aimed at all those who have an interest in the development of responsive welfare institutions, including policy makers, professionals and academics.