The Challenge of Existential Social Work Practice 
                                    
                                  by 
                               Mark Griffiths 
                        B.A., B.S.W. University of Melbourne 
                            M.S.W. RMIT University 
                            School of Social Sciences 
                                    
                                    
                                    
                                    
                                    
          Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy in Social Work 
                        University of Tasmania October 2017
         1 
          
       Statements and Declarations 
       Statement of Originality  
       This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for a degree or diploma by the 
       University or any other institution, except by way of background information and duly 
       acknowledged in the thesis, and to the best of my knowledge and belief no material 
       previously published or written by another person except where due acknowledgement is 
       made in the text of the thesis, nor does the thesis contain any material that infringes 
       copyright. 
       Signed  
       Mark Griffiths 
       Authority of Access  
       The publication titled The Challenge of Existential Social Work Practice, which forms a part 
       of this thesis,  is a publication,  and is subject to commercial contract with Palgrave 
       MacMillan, London. No access or loan of any part of this document is permitted without the 
       direct permission of Palgrave Macmillan, the copyright holders. The remaining unpublished 
       content of the thesis may be made available for loan and limited copying and communication 
       in accordance with the Copyright Act 1968.  
       Signed  
       Mark Griffiths 
       i 
       Statement of Ethical Conduct 
       The research associated with this thesis abides by the international and Australian codes on 
       human and animal experimentation, the guidelines by the Australian Government's Office of 
       the Gene Technology Regulator and the rulings of the Safety, Ethics and Institutional 
       Biosafety Committees of the University. 
       Signed  
       Mark Griffiths 
       ii 
                Exegesis on ‘The Challenge of Existential 
                Social Work Practice’ 
                Contents 
                   Statements and Declarations ............................................................................................................... i 
                     Statement of Originality ................................................................................................................... i 
                     Authority of Access .......................................................................................................................... i 
                     Statement of Ethical Conduct ......................................................................................................... ii 
                   Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 1 
                   My involvement in existential thought: Why existentialism? ............................................................ 5 
                   Research Process ................................................................................................................................ 9 
                   Focus groups ..................................................................................................................................... 13 
                   Marcel and social work ..................................................................................................................... 16 
                   The London conference on existential therapy ................................................................................ 16 
                   The incommensurability of existential thought ................................................................................ 17 
                     How Sartre read Heidegger........................................................................................................... 20 
                     Being-in-the-world ........................................................................................................................ 23 
                   Incommensurability and lessons from the secondary literature ...................................................... 25 
                     Hazel Barnes .................................................................................................................................. 25 
                     William Barrett .............................................................................................................................. 27 
                     Walter Kaufmann .......................................................................................................................... 28 
                     James Collins ................................................................................................................................. 30 
                     Kevin Aho ...................................................................................................................................... 31 
                   Categorizing Existential thought ....................................................................................................... 32 
                   What is existential social work practice? .......................................................................................... 33 
                   The empirical in existential social work ............................................................................................ 36 
                   Existential and critical social work .................................................................................................... 36 
                   Development of each chapter .......................................................................................................... 38 
                                                                ................................
                     Chapter 1 – Being-in-the-social work-world                    ................................................. 38 
                     Chapter 2 – Immortal social work: The first existential social work practice ............................... 38 
                     Chapter 3 – Existential social work comes of age ......................................................................... 39 
                iii