The second part of the book is devoted to one angle of the practice of the paradigm: placing relationships at the centre. Close relationships are central in PAP practice. However, is it possible to establish close relationships when we understand that these relationships are contaminated by power? Since processes of Othering go hand in hand with the power relations that constitute the encounters between social workers and service users, relationships are political. In light of this situation, this part of the book aims to work through power and overcome popular notions regarding poverty and professional socialisation that join together to direct the attention of social workers to diagnosis and pathologisation.

The four chapters in this part of the book borrow from current psychoanalytic theories on the concept of ‘recognition’. Chapter 6, ‘Poverty, recognition, therapy’, presents the concept of ‘recognition’ and links it to poverty and therapy. Based on a review of works by philosophers and psychoanalysts, the chapter argues that recognition is a basic component of the therapeutic relationship that enables the psychological experience of one's subjectivity. The chapter argues that in order to give recognition to service users living in poverty, social workers should acknowledge those aspects of service users’ inner worlds: their needs and knowledge; the emotional pain caused by poverty; and their ways of resisting poverty. Acknowledging all of these enables full recognition and makes it possible to see the full humanity of service users, as well as to establish close relationships with them.

The recognition of these three areas is further detailed and exemplified in the next three chapters. Chapter 7, ‘On needs and knowledge: Sarit's story’, exemplifies the recognition of the needs and knowledge of people in poverty through the story of Sarit. Sarit was one of my interviewees during my doctoral research, and her story has accompanied me for many years. I analysed it using the concept of recognition for the purpose of this book.

Chapter 8, ‘On emotional pain’, presents excerpts from women's testimonies on emotional pain in their lives. Pain is an embodied phenomenon.