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23rd March 1964.
Dear Sir,
Love or Skill
It interests me that your journal has found a wide public for the consideration of problems that are somewhat specialised, such as that raised by Paul Halmos (March 19th). What indeed is the prime factor in social work of all kinds, including psychoanalysis? As my name was mentioned several times I wish to take up the theme where Mr. Halmos leaves it.
Social work is professional work, and what is being discussed is the motivation that applies in the limited area of the worker's relation to a client-situation. It can certainly be held that love is necessary; the work could not be done out of hate. But the worker's hate is contained in the structure of the professional relationship, its finite nature, its being paid for, etc. If the word love is used the most primitive meanings of the word must be included, in which love is crude and ruthless and even destructive. Hate is not absent but it is sublimated. This is important because, in my view, there is great danger in a dissemination of a sentimental idea about psycho-analysis, social work, or being a parent.
Mr. Halmos did not develop the concept of diagnosis in his