A Concept of Acute Situational Disorders *

In recent years a number of social workers have made a plea for further study and clarification of current conceptualization of casework problems, out of a sense of dissatisfaction with these concepts and the related system of classifying casework problems. ¹ The importance of these formulations of casework problems to diagnosis, to treatment, and to the growing professional interest in developing preventive measures makes the task of clarifying these concepts one of high priority. This paper is offered in the hope that it may contribute a new theoretical framework from which to view the definitions and classification of casework problems.