"What is Professional Social Work?" is a now classic analysis of social work as a discourse between three aspects of practice: social order, therapeutic and transformational perspectives. It enables social workers to analyse and value the role of social work in present-day multi-professional social care. This completely re-written second edition explores social work's struggle to meet its claim to achieve social progress through interpersonal practice. The important features of this new edition include: practical ways of analysing personal professional identity; understanding how social workers embody their profession in their practice with other professionals; detailed analysis of current and historical documents defining social work and social care analysis of values, agencies and global social work. This new edition will stimulate social workers, students and policy-makers in social care to think again about the valuable role social work plays in society.