Autonomy and dependence

This chapter suggests that while autonomy has been upheld as an important value for social work historically, there has often been a lack of specificity as to what autonomy means, and how it differs from similar terms such as independence, freedom of choice, and so on. Beginning from the Kantian view of autonomy, the chapter tracks how the inherent ‘untidiness’ of the concept within social work practice maps on to its theoretical development, and how the theoretical and practical tensions within relational, procedural, dialogical and agential autonomy call for a more clearly articulated, and contextually nuanced, account of autonomy within social work theory.