Social class and psychotherapy: A sociolinguistic approach

Professional social workers are the primary resource for psychotherapeutic services among the lower status groups in our society. While everyone in the profession knows this, relatively little systematic research and theory has been generated on the question of how to adapt our interventions so as to better serve this clientele.Bernstein's work on social class and speech codes is examined. His theories are applied to the problem of conducting psychotherapy with a social stratum whose language code is ill-suited for the more traditional verbally oriented therapies. Some suggestions for alternative treatment approaches are made.