Psychotherapy, distributive justice, and social work revisited

Harvey Dean (1998) rejects my (Wakefield, 1988a; 1988b) argument that minimal distributive justice is the essential mission of social work and that treatment of mental disorder is not part of the profession's essential mission but rather a derived task. He argues that social work has broader ethical aims that encompass both pursuit of justice and treatment of mental disorder In this article, I review my earlier position and respond to Dean's objections. I argue that Dean's narrativist account of the profession's ethical aims is overly broad and that he confuses non-disordered psychological problems with mental disorders. I conclude that neither my "minimal distributive justice" view of social work's mission nor my exclusion of treatment of mental disorder from the profession's essential mission are disconfirmed by Dean's arguments.