Title: Who is the expert and on what? A qualitative study of the social workers response of the client. The purpose with this study is to obtain an insight in how the social workers reason around the interaction with the client and how they see the client as an expert on herself. The study is qualitative and is based on semi-structured interviews with nine informants from different parts of the social Service from municipalities. The qualitative study has an inductive and a deductive approach and a perspective that is constructivism.  These interviews were thematized and three themes emerged. The first theme was about the response of the client and how the social workers looks at their role as professional in relation to the clients they encounter. Another key part of the same theme was the meeting with the client. The second theme has the client as the expert as the central part. The key here was the profession's view of the client's own knowledge about themselves and how social workers handle the client's knowledge. The third and last theme was all about how the profession meets and treats the client on the basis of guidelines and manuals. Central to this theme was this how the social worker looks at the use of guidelines and manuals during the meeting with the client, which some see them as a help and some see that sometimes these become a hindrance. These three themes are on social workers perspective on the treatment of the client from different angles. / Titel: Vem är expert och på vad? En kvalitativ studie om socialsekreterarnas bemötande av klienten.   Syftet med denna studie är att få en inblick i hur socialsekreterarna resonerar kring bemötandet av klienten och hur de ser på klienten som expert på sig själv. Studien är kvalitativ och baserades på semistrukturerade intervjuer med nio informanter från olika delar inom socialtjänsten från olika kommuner. Den kvalitativa studien har en induktiv ansats med inslag av deduktiv ansats och utgår från det konstruktivistiska perspektivet. Intervjuerna har tematiserats varvid tre teman kommit fram. Första temat handlar om bemötandet av klienten och hur socialsekreterarna ser på sin roll som professionell i förhållande till de klienter de möter. Ytterligare en central del i samma tema är mötet med klienten. Det andra temat har klienten som expert som central del. Här är det professionens syn på klientens egna kunskaper om sig själva och hur socialsekreterarna hanterar klientens kunskap som är det centrala. Tredje och sista temat handlar om hur professionen möter och bemöter klienten utifrån riktlinjer och manualer. Det centrala i detta tema är här hur socialsekreterare ser på användandet av manualer i mötet med klienten, där en del ser dem som en hjälp och en del ser att emellanåt blir dessa ett hinder. Dessa tre teman handlar om socialsekreterares perspektiv på bemötande av klienten från olika infallsvinklar.

Evidence-based psychotherapeutic methods compete with each other, while meta-analysis have shown that variability due to different methods related to outcome is remarkably low. In this qualitative study six former patients were interviewed about experiences of method and technique in Affect-focused therapy, with a slight overweight towards unsatisfactory experiences. Responses were analysed and categorised in emergent themes. Methodological focus on affect showed to be a much appreciated, as well as insufficient, element. Alongside positive experiences or summaries of therapy, methodological frames were felt to be at times restrictive, even invalidating, as far as not allowing focus on what was felt to be the more predominant need. These needs were varied and individual; e.g. more/less of undetermined space free of preconceptions, more/less focus on affect, more direction forward, or more space for existentially oriented aspects. Results found good support in previous research except for a strong validation of therapists, even when aspects of therapy had been severely problematic. Experiences of applied method differed extremely among participants. The study highlighted lack of relation between method and outcome, and that positive regard of therapy and alliance were not synonymous with good outcome. Prominent themes were quality of methodological focus on affect and of therapeutic relationship, basic humanistic values, and individual factors of variance. Future research was suggested to focus on integration of methods, on therapists’ common factors, as well as on issues of power in the therapeutic relationship.