When a client contacts a social worker for the first time, the two are completely unfamiliar with each other. Then they don’t know what to expect from each other, what they find important, how they view life, et cetera. Then they talk to each other to at least get to know each other a little better. In other words: social work cannot do without communication and one of the most important forms of communication in social work is conversation.

A conversation is an oral communication between at least two people. A conversation can be casual or formal.

By having conversations we can broaden our life experience and gain knowledge of where we still fall short: for example, the social worker will want to know what problem or problems there are and what the context is, while the client often has no idea what possible in social work. So by having conversations we can learn from each other.

The social worker can use all kinds of techniques during a conversation: deliberately dropping silence to let the other person talk, sitting forward to show that you are being listened to, summarizing what has been said in your own words to clarify what is meant, et cetera .

In addition, there are different types of conversations: the first conversation is called the intake and is mainly aimed at entering into contact with the social worker, while afterwards there are conversations in which progress is discussed and how it can be done differently. But it is always about learning from each other. People are very complex and full of experiences, while the interlocutor does not know what thoughts the other has. So actually it is just an exchange action: with both interlocutors there are questions and answers and they are exchanged during the conversation. Incidentally, most clients take a passive role and do not ask many questions themselves, while it is hinted in the course of the conversations that they actually do have questions.

Incidentally, there is more than an exchange of thoughts/knowledge. When two people are talking to each other, it can happen that they involuntarily copy each other’s eye blinking speed or start mirroring each other (taking the same posture). And if people are not really talking to each other, there can be an exchange of monologues.

Known forms of conversations are:

a private conversation
a bad news conversation
an assessment interview
a question or interview
a discussion
a consultation
a superficial conversation (proverbially about small talk)
an in-depth conversation