Social workers undertake a range of assessments requiring them to understand the causes of human behaviour and what leads to well-being for service users. A philosophical perspective called 'critical realism' enables social workers, along with the families with whom they work, to identify some of the causative factors affecting the latter's lives. Using this perspective, the author has identified one significant causal mechanism, called 'abjection'. The work of Julia Kristeva is adopted to more fully understand how abjection impacts people succumbing to this psychological mechanism. I look at how abjection can shame people and social groups and what steps social workers need to take to examine abjection within their own psychological experience. Helping service users to discuss their experiences of abjection can empower them to reconstruct the disabling stories that they tell about their lives. Assessment is a pivotal part of social work process and is meant, amongst other things, to identify the deep-seated causes of human behaviour and well-being. This search for causation, it is argued, can be illuminated through a critical realist understanding of the person in society. In line with this philosophical stance, this article introduces a little considered causative mechanism pertinent to social work assessment: that of psychological abjection. Formulated by the French psychoanalytical theorist, Julia Kristeva, abjection serves to differentiate the self from the 'abject' or what is viewed as atypical in presentation. This concept is then scrutinised leading to the enlarged notion of social abjection; that is, the 'othering' and shaming of social groups which are viewed as anomalous. The implications of both psychological and social abjection for social workers are subsequently considered. At this point, the countervailing causative mechanism of recognition is proposed to mitigate abjection, and an argument is made for applying it within narrative social work and emancipatory groupwork. Finally, it is contended that social workers must commit to abjection work. This effort involves professionals gaining insight into how the abjection mechanism affects their inner world of perception and emotion, assessment of situations, and approach to service users.
