Social Love and Social Work: A Way of Helping Through Feelings Between Professionals and Users

Abstract

This article presents the results of two qualitative studies, realized in Italy, aimed at investigating if and how social love informs social workers’ practices and interventions designed to address situations of poverty and homelessness. In particular, the aim of these studies was to further develop the line of inquiry initiated by a preliminary exploratory study conducted in Italy some years ago, which recognized traces of agapic action within helping relationships in the context of social services addressing conditions of social exclusion and poverty, and found that these agapic actions produce a reality sui generis: a unity between subjects which, from reciprocal action, leads to a ‘generative social mechanism’, existing beyond the parties involved and overabundant. The results of the two studies presented in the article offer further evidence to support this hypothesis. The article highlights the existential and professional perspective with which social workers approach the challenging task of helping vulnerable individuals. Elements of social love have been highlighted that contribute to making professional assistance more sustainable and effective, moving away from neoliberal and managerialist approaches that often ignore the emotional and relational dimensions. Social love fuels motivation for positive change despite social and personal limitations and risks of failure.

1. Introduction

Among the many challenges that contemporary welfare systems are increasingly called upon to address is the growing frustration and demotivation experienced by practitioners, stemming from a pervasive sense of powerlessness when confronted with increasingly complex situations of need. These situations are not only difficult to resolve but often cannot even be contained, with the result that their effects persist over time and tend to become chronic. Indeed, such conditions are characterized by a multiplicity of problems that have accumulated and become entrenched over time, in relation to which support interventions often prove ineffective and the economic resources invested prove consistently insufficient.

In the current context, marked by the predominance of neoliberal ideology—promoting substantial cuts to public funding for services and the adoption of organizational and managerial models inspired by managerialism (Lorenz 2025)—the political, institutional, and social mandate assigned to service professionals appears to focus primarily on regulating access to welfare systems and monitoring service users’ appropriate use of services and benefits. However, the complexity of these conditions often means that individuals lack both the formal eligibility criteria required to access institutional support and the competencies necessary to make effective use of available services. As a result, practitioners are frequently compelled either to exclude such individuals from the welfare system or, even when they are admitted, find themselves unable to produce any substantive change in their circumstances.

The mandate of control, which—alongside that of care (Tronto 1993; Banks 2006)—has traditionally characterized the professional role of social workers (Bisleri and Pantalone 2005), thus tends to prevail. This leads professionals to focus on verifying eligibility criteria and monitoring services delivered through standardized and audited procedures aimed at measuring outcomes and costs (Lorenz 2025; Gui and Vecchiato 2023). In interventions involving individuals living in multiproblematic conditions marked by poverty and severe social marginalization, this approach proves largely ineffective for service users and deeply frustrating for practitioners, who find themselves caught between regulatory constraints and limited institutional resources, on the one hand, and their professional and ethical commitment to act, on the other.

The recognition of the partial insight into and explanation of the complexity of human behaviour offered by technical–rational knowledge, of the increasingly task-orientated, pressurized decision-making environment promoted by managerial approaches to social work as well the inefficacy of existing defensive and proceduralized attempts to tackle the demands of practice explain the renewed interest in relationship-based practice (Ingram and Smith 2018). As Ruch (2005) arguments, the central premise of the relationship-based practice model is the emphasis placed on the professional relationship as the medium through which the practitioner can engage with the complexity of an individual’s internal and external worlds and intervene. The practitioner–client relationship is recognized to be an important source of information for the practitioner to understand how best to help, and simultaneously this relationship is the means by which any help or intervention is offered.

When practitioners prioritize their professional deontology and ethical commitments, their intervention opens up to a different mode of action, guided primarily by the recognition of the person seeking support (Honneth 1992), rather than solely by the demand expressed. This person reflects a shared humanity, marked by vulnerability but also by the potential to act despite personal and structural constraints, and is entitled to dignity and the freedom of self-realization (Nussbaum 2012).

Such recognition is consistent with the unconditional positive regard proposed by Rogers (1951) and could give rise to a particular form of relationship, that is, compassionate relationships with service users, as described by Tanner (2020): motivated by unconditional love; altruistic; action-oriented, aimed at relieving suffering; and commonly including small acts of kindness that go ‘above and beyond’ what could be expected. It arises from ‘just being there’ when service users experience pain and distress (Hay 2019) and encompasses both ‘feelings for’ the person who is suffering and a desire to act to relieve the suffering. Thus, it acts as a catalyst for a deeper emotional and physical response from which social love can flourish.

Social love is defined as an action, relationship, or social interaction in which subjects exceed—whether in giving, receiving, withholding, or even neglecting—all antecedent conditions, thereby offering more than the situation requires in order to generate benefits (Araújo et al. 2015, 2016; Iorio 2015, p. 23; Cataldi and Iorio 2023).

As argued by Cataldi and Iorio (2023), this form of love is characterized by several core dimensions: overabundance, care for others and the world, universalism, and recognition of the other. Social love exceeds expectations by doing more than what is required or reciprocated, thereby reinforcing the possibility of non-individualistic action and contributing to the construction of solidarity. However, overabundance alone may be insufficient or even problematic if it is not oriented toward the good of the other. For this reason, social love entails care for others and the world, placing the well-being of others at the centre of action. Universalism implies that social love transcends in-group boundaries and extends beyond one’s immediate circle. In this sense, it is not rooted in an abstract ideal of humanity, but in an awareness of the shared condition of limitation and fragility that unites all human beings. This perspective resonates with what Morley and Ife (2002) define as “love of humanity,” a form of love that is both constitutive of and expressive of human existence, as it articulates what it means to be a conscious being in the world. For these authors, such a concept is particularly relevant for social work because it encompasses widely invoked notions such as commitment, altruism, value base, social justice, care, hope, and compassion, while also extending beyond them (Morley and Ife 2002, p. 71). It reflects something both deeply personal and profoundly powerful, capable of transcending purely rational modes of thought and challenging the need to justify action solely through formal logic (Morley and Ife 2002).

Understood in this way, social love assumes the character of a public activity, as it involves crossing the boundary between the private and public spheres in a particularly demanding way. It requires a reconfiguration of the concept of love beyond its conventional association with the personal and intimate and calls for professional identity and action to be aligned with one of the most fundamental human capacities. As Morley and Ife emphasize, love is not only about values or feelings, but also about action: it is through practice that love is realized. In this sense, it links the private and public dimensions, as well as values and action, offering a way to overcome some of the most persistent dualisms in social work (Morley and Ife 2002). From this perspective, love can be understood as an ethic—“the love ethic”—that reframes traditional notions of benevolent charity into forms of engaged and transformative action capable of challenging systems of neoliberal capitalism, patriarchy, racism, and environmental exploitation (Godden 2017). A systematic review of love and social work conducted by Ross and Karki (2026) likewise led the authors to argue that love, understood as both an ethic and a set of socio-political practices, is directly relevant to social work. According to the authors, love can be conceived of as a refined ethical capacity capable of guiding negotiations aimed at addressing the conflicting interests and power imbalances that underpin issues of social justice. Consequently, they suggest that a love-informed ethical positionality could provide an anchor for, and potentially synthesize, existing perspectives into a broadly applicable approach to anti-oppressive practice.

Reconsidering social love is also crucial for social work because of its potential impact on the relationship between social workers and service users. As highlighted by Vasquez and De Maina (2015), Demartis (2015), and Gui (2019), social love has a generative effect, insofar as recipients of care are not merely passive beneficiaries but active subjects who, in turn, contribute to the well-being of professionals. It generates a relational dynamic with the capacity to transform both subjects involved. In this sense, it activates a “generative social mechanism” through which mutual engagement produces more dynamic and satisfying forms of interaction. As noted by (Gui 2019, p. 74; see also Gui and Demartis 2022), when formal rules—whether technical or bureaucratic—are insufficient to reconcile needs and available responses, the relational quality generated through dialogical and agapic interaction can constitute an additional form of support that does not consume resources but rather generates new ones.

The presence and potential of social love become most evident when the challenges of caring appear insurmountable, as in such contexts the limitations of welfare systems based solely on service provision are more clearly exposed. These systems, organized around standardized services and governed by automatic demand–response mechanisms, often prove incapable of fostering meaningful interpersonal relationships. Social love—often invisible when attention is restricted to formal and impersonal procedures within services—can instead be identified by considering the nature and value of the “relational goods” produced within welfare systems (Bruni 2004; Forsé and Tronca 2005; Donati 2007).

As highlighted in social work research (Gui and Sanfelici 2023, pp. 59–100), in the former case professional actions tend to be dominated by normative control, assessment, and gatekeeping functions in the redistribution of economic, material, and advisory resources, accompanied by attitudes of mutual separation between professionals and users. This stance often generates distrust, as well as feelings of shame or fear of intrusion, ultimately discouraging those most in need from engaging with welfare services.

Conversely, in the latter case, professional practices are characterized by non-judgmental reception, solidaristic empathy, recognition, and the construction of proactive alliances aimed at improving individuals’ conditions, including through the extension of relational networks. These practices are associated with attitudes of mutual understanding. Within such a relational environment, trust and mutual appreciation are fostered, and opportunities for constructive change are more likely to emerge.

2. Materials and Methods

As noted above, this research builds on a preliminary exploratory study conducted in Italy (Demartis 2015; Gui 2019; Gui and Demartis 2022). That study identified traces of agapic action in helping relationships within social services addressing social exclusion and poverty. It also showed that such actions can generate a sui generis reality: a form of unity between subjects that emerges from reciprocal interaction and gives rise to a ‘generative social mechanism’ that extends beyond the individuals involved and is characterized by overabundance. To further investigate these issues, two in-depth studies were conducted. The first study, conducted in Italy as part of a national social work research project (Sicora and Fargion 2023; Gui and Sanfelici 2024), used the concept of agapic action as an interpretative framework to analyze 27 interviews with social workers, aiming to explore how social workers understand the conditions of low-income parents, how these understandings shape their interventions, and what challenges they encounter, together with the strategies they adopt to address them. The study followed a grounded theory approach (Charmaz 2006), which guided sampling, data collection, and analysis, in line with the interpretative paradigm. Participants were recruited through purposive and snowball sampling strategies. The final sample comprised 27 social workers with different levels of experience, employed in different social services located in the north, in the centre and in the south of Italy, and engaged in supporting parents living in economic hardship conditions (Gui and Sanfelici 2024). Data was collected through in-depth interviews using open-ended questions designed to elicit participants’ reflections, follow their own lines of reasoning, and encourage the discussion of concrete examples from practice. The interview guide covered five areas: (a) representations of parenting; (b) parenting in conditions of poverty; (c) the role of the social worker in supporting low-income parents; (d) perceived challenges and strengths in working with families, both at the professional level and within the welfare system; and (e) theories or methodologies applied in practice, where relevant. All interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and anonymized by removing any identifying information that could be traced back to the interviewees. The texts were first analyzed line by line, focusing on recurring words, expressions, and images (Braun and Clarke 2013). In a second step, the analysis aimed to identify categories and elements related to social love, including its semantic dimensions—overabundance, care for others and the world, and universalism—and its core features, namely being practical, creative, self-transcending, and social (Cataldi and Iorio 2023). The study was approved by the Ethical Committee for Research of the University of Trieste. All participants were informed about the study’s aim and procedures for data protection and signed an informed consent form. All the data were stored in the primary institution’s secured server, which was only accessible to research team members.

The second study was conducted within a methodological support program aimed at the implementation of One-Stop Shops in 140 municipalities in Northern Italy. The program adopted a participatory action research approach and involved all social service professionals engaged in the activation of the One-Stop Shops. Consistent with participatory action research approaches (Uggerhøj 2011a, 2011b), the professionals involved in the process become researchers themselves and were therefore considered subjects rather than objects of the research. Together with them, the research focus, data collection tools, and research content were co-constructed. The latter emerged from a shared process of critical reflection on practice conducted collaboratively by professionals and researchers. In this sense, obviously, participants’ consent to the use of data is embedded in their participation in the collaborative research process, which entails a willingness to share their reflections and make them available, in anonymized form, for the analyses and interpretations jointly agreed upon by the research group. A total of 36 professionals participated, including 24 females and 12 males. Most of them were educators (20), while a smaller proportion were social workers (9); six were generic social service practitioners and one was a cultural mediator. The majority were employed by non-profit organizations and, to a lesser extent, by public agencies. In the present study, participants were asked to describe situations in which, while working with a person experiencing homelessness, they were involved in ways that differed from their usual practice. During one session of the pathway, participants were given approximately 30 min to reflect and write brief accounts of situations in which the relationship was less oriented toward promoting change and more open to accommodating the individual’s timing and mode of engagement. They were also asked to report how they felt in these situations. A thematic content analysis (Braun and Clarke 2013) was conducted on both the written accounts and the interview data. The aim was to identify elements related to social love, including its semantic dimensions and core features (Cataldi and Iorio 2023). All the data related to this study are stored in the University of Trieste secured server, which is only accessible to research team members.

The following section presents the two studies described above, which investigated professionals’ narratives of their work experiences, collected in the absence of evaluative goals concerning efficiency.

3. Results

This section presents the results of the analysis of the two studies.

3.1. First Study

The analysis of the interviews clearly highlighted the presence, within social services, of an institutional mandate and an organizational structure that strongly shape social workers’ interventions. These tend to be constrained within a function of verifying eligibility criteria for access to services, aimed at establishing the formal and bureaucratic legitimacy of users’ requests (Lorenz 2025; Gui and Vecchiato 2023). This often leads social workers to perceive themselves as

“controllers of the poor, those who count the money in the pockets of people who already have very little, the judges of a sort of court of the poor”

(P1).

This role not only generates discomfort among social workers, but also proves inadequate in many situations, especially in more complex cases where economic hardship is intertwined with health, social, and educational issues. As Gui and Vecchiato (2023) highlight, in such cases, the eligibility criteria established by welfare systems tend to be overly rigid or to require excessive selective qualifications and competencies, with the result that individuals are either excluded or, if admitted, are unable to fully benefit from the services provided.

These circumstances occur frequently:

“situations that become chronic or that return repeatedly with similar requests, or in which, during the interview, while trying to match the request with available resources, other needs emerge—needs related to being listened to, to thinking things through with someone, because something in their life is not working, there is an underlying problem, such as addiction, gambling, alcohol […] a problem, I repeat, that is not based on the ISEE [standard income indicator]”

(P1).

In several cases, after initially accessing services, individuals are subsequently excluded, entering a vicious cycle of progressive impoverishment from which they struggle to escape. This mode of access risks creating a barrier between professionals and users, making communication increasingly difficult and, in some cases, leading to its breakdown. It also risks emptying social work of what practitioners perceive as its core function, which goes beyond the mere provision of financial assistance, as illustrated in the following excerpt:

“There is a situation of severe economic poverty. Over the years, the service has provided a great deal of financial support, which has never resolved the economic issue […]. If you look at those with the greatest economic needs, they are cases […] that have been in the system for a lifetime, because it seems that the service is no longer able to assess with the family what the actual need is. It becomes a ‘I ask and you give, I ask and you give, I ask and you don’t give’… but the dynamic is always the same.”

(P2)

In many of these situations, social workers perceive the need to shift the focus of intervention from the expressed economic request to the underlying need:

“The service has never managed to move the assessment from the economic need to the [need actually perceived by the person]; there are resistances […]. So, I do not respond with financial support, but with: ‘Let us work on this resistance.’ If, instead, I continue to respond with financial support, a dynamic is created between the institution, the social service, and the user that is completely ineffective, and perhaps the social service itself ends up creating a serious problem for that family.”

(P2)

In these situations, social workers’ awareness clearly emerges “that social love is the right answer. A good way of doing this, at the intersection of power and social work, makes sure we exercise proper social work, which according to Smith (2008) is questioning, contextually aware, strategic, assertive, committed, on the side of the oppressed, and willing to take risks” (Szeintuch 2022, p. 474).

Sometimes social workers are able to make this shift and reposition their intervention beyond the organizational constraints of eligibility criteria. They move toward recognizing the person behind the request and establishing a relationship with them. This involves going beyond the institutional mandate, starting from the recognition of a shared humanity and a common condition of vulnerability and need—conditions that professionals realize that they could have addressed differently only due to differing life circumstances.

“I have not observed problems based on the ISEE [family income indicator]. I find that there are needs related to being human, which occur among people below the poverty threshold, above it, and far above it […]. I do not feel that the user is something very distant from me. I think the difference between me and a user is that I have been a bit more fortunate in where I was born and in how certain things turned out […]. I try to focus on the person’s humanity.”

(P1)

“Honestly, I have never turned anyone away, I have never said: ‘This is not my responsibility,’ because I am not an administrative worker sitting behind a computer. Absolutely not. I take some of my time and help these parents […]. When a parent comes to me and says: ‘Doctor, can you help me find a job?’—that typical response ‘I am not an employment office’—I have never used it, and probably never will […]. In response, I tell them that I will be a point of reference, I ask them to leave their CVs, and I tell them that when a training course or a job opportunity arises, I will contact them.”

(P3)

As Morley and Ife (2002) argue, these excerpts highlight the importance for social work of reclaiming the dimension of “love of humanity”, which requires moving beyond the personal and intimate connotations commonly associated with the concept of love and recognizing it as a fundamental element of professional social work practice and identity.

This reflects a relational approach that is open to the risk of failure, but also to the possibility of finding satisfaction and meaning in helping work:

“It happened, to my great satisfaction, that a recruitment call for bus drivers was published. I had a beneficiary who had all the required driving licenses, so as soon as the call came out, I contacted him and said: ‘You must apply immediately.’ He replied: ‘Doctor, I do not have a computer.’ I said: ‘That does not matter, come here.’ I had him come to the office, and we completed the application together. With great satisfaction and happiness, he called me a few days ago and said: ‘Doctor, I have been invited for an interview.’ He attended the interview, and now we are waiting for the outcome together. That is my way of helping people, without emphasizing that I am not an employment office.”

(P3)

As Ruch (2005) states, relational approaches enable social workers to engage in more comprehensive assessment and accurate interventions with individuals and families by providing an integrated understanding of the interplay between individual and structural causes of social distress. This perspective challenges individualized interpretations of social problems and their solutions, which tend to place responsibility primarily on service users and social workers themselves.

In order to overcome organizational constraints, the interviews highlight the need for social workers to adopt a form of communication that goes beyond the purely verbal—one that allows the “heart” to speak and gives space to “passion” and in particular to compassion and its capacity to be the catalyst to a deeper emotional and physical response aimed at relieving suffering (Tanner 2020). This communicative approach enables practitioners to interpret messages conveyed through the emotional channel, while sharpening their capacity for observation and imagination:

“I will give you an example, and I do so with great emotion. I carried out a home visit, even though COVID regulations said that home visits should not be conducted. But I put my heart into that visit—I wanted to be there; I wanted to understand. For me, it is not enough to see two people sitting one meter apart in my office. I believe that being a social worker means getting your hands dirty, entering the field, observing, reading, listening, becoming aware. If you do not enter the situation, you cannot truly understand it. So, I conducted this home visit, where there were four adults and two children. One of the children turned to me and said: ‘Doctor—a six-year-old child who, to me, already seemed like an adult—now that we no longer have the RdC [citizenship income], can we no longer eat?’ That child challenged me, touched my heart—as a mother and as a professional. In that moment, I had one task, and one only: to let him be a child again […]. I truly carry this family in my heart, and I swear that one day I will manage to unlock something, because it is right that it should be so […]. Sometimes there is a block, and in those moments only the heart can speak.”

(P3)

As this excerpt shows, emotional engagement allows social workers to recognize the limits of their intervention without being overwhelmed by them, maintaining confidence in the possibility of overcoming such limits. In several cases, social workers are able to mobilize a combination of emotional and rational resources that fosters further capacities for positive imagination and creativity, enabling them to look beyond the constraints of the present and develop

“creativity in thinking about interventions. In the sense that, when faced with certain family needs, after carrying out the assessment, I sometimes find myself designing a plan together with the family that includes interventions I would not call entirely new, but rather ad hoc interventions, co-constructed with the family, which are not always included within the range of services and provisions offered by the municipality.”

(P2)

“These are certainly situations that engage and activate me, but I approach them with a sense of hope for improvement. It comes naturally to me to think about what kind of response could be developed, or what could be activated […] we conduct interviews with families, we try to activate something, we try to reflect together, because I see these as situations where the possibility of recovery or positive change exists. Even in those cases that seem like a vicious circle, I still hope that something can be improved or changed, and that is how I approach them.”

(P7)

To engage in compassionate social work practice, social workers have to believe that it is legitimate to experience and express emotions that are triggered by entering into worlds that feature pain, trauma and distress (Tanner 2020). More generally, social workers have to recognize that emotions permeate social service and to not recognize their value for professionals is to crush other personal potentialities on formal rationality alone (Sicora 2026).

In other cases, it is through informal networks, external to the bureaucratic system, that social workers are able to intervene. Recognizing that the person’s need often exceeds the administrative dimension, they attempt to respond by mobilizing informal resources. This attitude of non-resignation and “overabundance,” characteristic of social love, generates further implications and extends to others in the effort to provide support. The forms of help generated by social love are not limited to the relationship between two people but rather provoke, without resignation, the growth of solidarity towards a broader dimension.

One interviewee recounts:

“I am referring to a specific case in which a family had their RdC [citizenship income] suspended. It is a family of six, with no income at all. As a social worker, I could have stopped there, because the guidelines state that when a preliminary assessment cannot be conducted due to the benefit of being suspended, one may stop. But I did not. I went beyond that, because when I first invited them to the office, their eyes spoke—their eyes were asking for help. It was a strange request for help, because perhaps they were not only seeking financial support, but human support—someone to talk to, someone who could offer even a small sense of hope […]. I tried in every possible way. During the Easter holidays, I attempted to secure extraordinary support […], but they did not qualify […], so they received no additional benefit. I really wanted to help them, and I did what I could […]. I turned to volunteers, I contacted a local parish priest, and I arranged for him to visit the family and offer some help. It was not much—a food parcel, something to get by—but for me, at that moment, it was already something. Above all, it was a way to show that I was there, that it did not all end with a preliminary assessment.”

(P3)

As Cataldi and Iorio (2023) argue, there can be no social love without society, since social love is always oriented towards at least one other person. At the individual level, social love is inherently relational, deriving its meaning from its orientation towards others. In many cases, it takes the form of a relationship or social interaction involving two or more individuals. In this sense, social love, understood as the interpenetration of subjects, contributes to the creation and reproduction of social institutions (Iorio 2015).

For this to occur, social workers transform even highly structured and bureaucratic settings into moments of openness and engagement, for instance, by “starting with informal conversation” and using administrative procedures as tools to deepen understanding:

“[This is] a way to develop a line of reasoning, […] a pretext to try to understand family dynamics […] by exploring and seeing whether I can bring out a desire—a desire for growth, for personal development.”

(P1)

In this way, as the social worker explains,

“We began a relationship that moved beyond the usual framework of case management as understood in traditional social work. It became a relationship between people, between human beings, shaped by attempts, failures, and the re-planning of interventions.”

(P1)

Despite an awareness of limits, persistent trust in the possibility of improvement remains:

“However, we have planted a seed to move beyond the cycle of total dependency.”

(P1)

This relational approach appears to help overcome the stalemate in which both social workers and service users often find themselves. Feeling recognized as valued subjects, recipients of attention, and holders of rights seems to open up a different perspective for service users, enabling them to reconsider themselves and their condition, and to regain trust in themselves and in others. As one social worker explains:

“They perceive a form of attention (from us), as if to say: ‘Okay, this (social worker) has reflected on my family situation, has thought about it: yes, there is this, I can offer something else.’ So, on the one hand, there is a recognition of attention; on the other—as I was saying—there is a project developed together with someone who, quite simply, acknowledges that these mothers, or fathers, or the family as a whole (when both parents are involved), are responsible for that small part. So, everyone together […] they feel responsible, they feel considered, and at the same time capable of becoming involved.”

(P4)

Professional support consistent with the notion of social love, in these cases, is grounded in mutual recognition between social workers and service users. It is not driven by expectations of immediate instrumental effectiveness or quick gratification but rather sustained by a patient and non-demanding orientation. This is illustrated in the following excerpt:

“Precisely because I have seen you, I have recognized you, I feel I can tell you that you are capable. Then, gradually, you begin to see growth […] as they start to recognize themselves as capable, competent, or at least involved in something, no longer left at the margins […]. When this process starts, you can feel the ‘click’. But until they perceive it—and it can take more or less time—they tend to be less proactive, still in the position of ‘let’s first see what you have to offer me’.”

(P4)

Although this form of support is not conditional, social love appears to have a self-reinforcing, multiplicative effect:

“What struck me about the father is that, to thank us—even though he still does not have a stable job and works only occasionally—he decided to volunteer at the evening soup kitchen. He goes there almost every evening, even without a job, and he said: ‘You helped me, and now it is time for me to help X as well.’ It is something very meaningful, because paradoxically the parents have become like children, as if roles had been reversed. Yet he does not want to stay at home doing nothing; if he cannot find work, he comes to help. He does not want to remain inactive—he has great determination. This is one of the stories that has affected me the most.”

(P8)

This approach also produces positive effects on social workers themselves, generating feelings of satisfaction that sustain their motivation and foster further engagement in the helping process, with a generative effect in terms of new ideas and interventions:

“For me, it was actually very enjoyable, for example during a neighborhood event organized by the school group. We volunteered to help, and so at the fried dough stand there was your social worker. Seeing your social worker there, volunteering for your neighborhood, has an impact—it is somewhat unexpected, but also positive. My service users seemed pleasantly surprised to see me there. It shows a different image of oneself; you present yourself in another way, and this helps. It allows us to reclaim our presence in the community […] also by expressing our professional role differently—not only as those who remove children, nor only as those who provide services, but also as those who co-design and reflect together on needs emerging from the community. These are transversal needs, not only related to services but also to spaces. Together with citizens and associations, you create, reflect, and put initiatives into practice.”

(P7)

As Gui argues, welcoming people rather than merely addressing their requests, fostering relationships rather than simply delivering services, and shifting the focus of intervention from problem-solving to engagement with people, makes it possible to establish mutually rewarding and meaningful relationships for all parties involved (Gui 2015, p. 125). This aspect points to the generative potential of “grateful” relationships, understood as relationships open to mutual recognition. In this sense, gratitude is not conceived as a debt arising from the receipt of a gift, but rather as a renewed recognition of the other person as a relational subject (Gui and Vecchiato 2023, p. 201).

3.2. Second Study

Considering the responses provided by the 36 social workers operating in the field of severe marginalization, several elements emerge that characterize actions of social love. These are actions carried out by professionals without utilitarian calculation or strategic premeditation regarding specific outcomes (Iorio 2015). In such actions, professionals relinquish the expectation of equivalence in giving within the relationship and, at the same time, experience forms of motivational reinforcement for themselves and for others precisely through these relational processes. The “relational overabundance” that characterizes social love—expressed in “giving, receiving, and reciprocating with the intention of benefiting the other” (Iorio 2015, p. 23)—appears most clearly when practitioners are able to resist, and partially free themselves from, the weight of an institutional and social mandate that is often difficult to sustain:

“As practitioners, we are asked to ‘solve’ (make disappear) the typical problems of marginality in a short time… and not achieving this result generates frustration (in us).”

(P17)

Most of the professionals involved, when referring to particularly “difficult” relationships with users experiencing marginalization, highlight the possibility of a qualitative shift in the relationship when moving beyond a formal, impersonal, and standardized professional setting, and entering the “world” of the other:

“As a municipal social worker, I found myself engaging in a helping relationship freed from institutional and organizational constraints (…) it was necessary and useful to accompany the person through change.”

(P29)

This sometimes occurs at the cost of partial disorientation on the part of the practitioner:

“In a less formal context and in a ‘free’ space, where Mr. X could simply have a chat; during this process I often felt powerless and uncertain about what to do, at times curious about the ‘world of the street’ but also concerned about possible negative outcomes. The relationship with Mr. X is still ‘free’ and loosely structured, more informal compared to other situations.”

(P11)

“Suddenly, the ‘rules of the game’ we had always known and applied with this person no longer worked, and we had to engage ourselves and start from scratch together with him. With him, thanks to him, there was a ‘before’ and an ‘after’ in our way of collaborating.”

(P3)

In these situations, practitioners shift both physically and cognitively from the formal setting of the service to the lifeworld of the person they encounter. The closeness between the two becomes physical and emotional, without confusing the roles.

“The meeting took place informally, on a balcony, which helped reduce the sense of distance.”

(P26)

“At the beginning of my professional experience, it was more difficult to ‘step out’ of the office and find the right position for myself. However, I noticed that the young people felt more comfortable and open when being together. In the end, I realized that I also felt at ease with them in that context. It sometimes required several meetings, and in some we talked about issues that might have seemed unrelated to the goal. But these moments were necessary to create a space for being together and getting to know each other before being allowed to enter into their inner experiences.”

(P25)

In the initial phase of the helping relationship, a respectful entry into the meaning framework of the person appears challenging for social workers, often hindered by mutual distrust and prejudice:

“‘Being’ in this type of relationship can, at times, generate frustration or a sense of stagnation, raising questions and doubts about one’s work. At the same time, one becomes aware of the importance of the relationship and of remaining in the here and now, because this is what the person can currently sustain and accept.”

(P10)

“It is difficult to understand and to wait/tolerate/accept that the person may need time or may simply not want to change their lifestyle.”

(P36)

“By sharing (…) one comes to know. One empathizes. One looks together and moves forward. Hesitantly, between moments of openness and sudden closures. The direction is co-constructed, if the relationship works.”

(P1)

As in previous research on agapic action among social workers, this exploratory study also highlights, within helping relationships, “an attitude of discovery and hope for autonomy in the other. The improvement of the other is not predefined according to one’s own calculations but hoped for in accordance with the uniqueness that the person being helped may express” (Gui and Demartis 2022, p. 98).

A key element is the presence, among professionals, of a form of “anthropological trust,” akin to a radical hope (Krumer Nevo 2020), concerning the value and potential of every person, including those in the most vulnerable and marginalized conditions.

At the same time, the findings confirm a central aspect widely discussed in the social work literature: the possibility of establishing interpersonal trust, which is a necessary and foundational condition for helping relationships and for authentic processes of empowerment. As one participant states:

“We had to devote more time to getting to know each other, in a way that was both in-depth and authentic; this is how trust emerged. Trust had to be continuously confirmed, in a sort of ‘ongoing test’. Once trust was maintained, the most meaningful outcome occurred: the person began to rely on us. At that point, I felt useful and genuinely recognized as a professional within a functional helping relationship. Not all three situations had a positive outcome.”

(P28)

“I spend time with her—time filled with long silences, sometimes awkward. But when I look for her and meet her, she is present. The pace is very slow, focused on today, at most tomorrow. She begins to raise her gaze; we establish contact; she starts to trust and rely on me, and begins to act, to speak. She appears alert, even ironic. Capacities that seemed frozen begin to re-emerge.”

(P28)

The presence of social love “beyond apparent utility” can be identified in several of the responses collected, as illustrated in the following excerpts:

“The priority is to fully empathize with the other, managing to understand their lived experience and life choices. The difficulty lies precisely in going beyond what appears ‘normal’.”

(P5)

In line with this non-productivist “relational stance” in social work (Pellegrino 2004), other practitioners express similar perspectives:

“In this type of relationship, one may experience frustration and sometimes even sadness, but this is what allows us to remain alongside situations often labeled as chronic, with a… kaleidoscopic gaze…”

(P15)

“We continue to be present, maintaining an open and warm relationship even in this way. (I remain) disoriented, hesitant (…) somewhat ignorant of the culture that shapes the person (experiencing homelessness), yet also somewhat admiring of this freedom.”

(P18)

In some accounts, this approach even appears to contradict common assumptions about service efficiency:

“Over time and through the relationship, I stopped encouraging the person to make choices aligned with service proposals (e.g., residential placement, shelters), which he rejected, and instead focused on listening, in order to convey dignity and freedom in constructing a new personal narrative.”

(P23)

“It was necessary and useful to accompany the person through change and in achieving small goals related to well-being (mail, documents, contacts). Despite this, R. took his own life. He was elderly (not very), tired, and although he followed and shared the changes, perhaps he was not truly ready. I felt like a tool and an anchor, not a lifebuoy. Would I do it again? Yes. Have I done it again? Certainly.”

(P29)

These excerpts point to a professional style that shifts the focus of intervention from the pursuit of predefined and measurable outcomes toward the development of a relational quality that is, in itself, re-enabling. This concerns, first and foremost, the person—their dignity, the recognition of their rights—prior to the activation of their capacities for action, to the point of suggesting that this kind of relationship already has enough value in itself to justify itself.

“We accompanied him in the last months of his life, supporting him with the involvement of several services—a networked effort—where Mr. Y was at the center. Until the very end, we tried not to forget that he was a person, a soul, before being ‘an alcoholic and gambling addict’.”

(P30)

These accounts highlight a distinctive feature of social love: it is expressed not only when relationships generate satisfaction and positive outcomes, but also when they expose practitioners to the “tragic” dimension of events (Iorio 2015, p. 40), without diminishing the commitment and passion that sustain the relational engagement.

Finally, particular attention should be given to the value of time. Time is reconfigured from a productive resource—often monetized within a neoliberal, managerial perspective, even in welfare systems (Lorenz 2025)—into a relational good to be experienced. This transformation depends on the way relational time is enacted and lived:

“Through experience, I have learned how important it is to go beyond the bare objective and focus instead on the process (…) without haste or anxiety about reaching the goal. This is necessary for growth—for all actors involved—and for exploring and giving meaning to the journey.”

(P4)

“The ultimate goal is certainly autonomy, but there is no predefined timeframe. First, it is necessary to respect the person’s pace, to elaborate and foster awareness without imposing or forcing change.”

(P8)

“There was a sharing of feelings of recollection and emotional release. The implication was that he allowed me into his affective network, in a way detached from formal roles. In that moment, he shared memories from the past. We shared the moment, the silence, the importance of remembering and of feeling that one belongs to someone.”

(P6)

“The challenge was to remain within his extended timeframe, without being driven by the urgency to reach an outcome. Work with the network involved trying to create new opportunities for relationships within the neighborhood and the local community, seeking to spread ‘care’ for others and to restore the person’s standing in the eyes of the community.”

(P7)

From these accounts, it is possible to discern a perspective among social workers that reorders the hierarchy of well-being factors within welfare systems. The focus shifts from the individual consumption of “beneficial” interventions delivered by services toward an experience of growth grounded in mutual recognition among persons. This process extends from the dyadic relationship between professionals and users to a broader involvement within the local community, encompassing a plurality of actors.

4. Discussion

The findings presented in the previous section, on the one hand, further corroborate the extensive body of evidence highlighting the selective and exclusionary effects of many poverty alleviation measures, particularly for the most vulnerable segments of the population, and, more broadly, the limitations of mechanisms regulating access to welfare systems (Bertin and Moro 2021; Saraceno et al. 2022). On the other hand, they also point to the de facto—though not prescribable—presence of social love in social workers’ practices (Cataldi and Iorio 2023) as a form of intervention capable of overcoming some of these limitations.

The analysis shows that social workers are motivated by the recognition of a shared human condition intrinsically marked by limitation and fragility (Cataldi and Iorio 2023). This awareness tempers illusory idealistic tensions while grounding professional action in concrete practice, oriented toward outcomes that may not appear immediately relevant in terms of welfare system efficiency yet are significant in fostering and sustaining individuals’ autonomy and social integration over the short, medium, and long term.

Moreover, these interventions are characterized by “overabundance”, understood as a persistent effort to generate well-being for those in difficulty without expectations of reciprocity (Cataldi and Iorio 2023). In this respect, the relational style informed by social love aligns with the anti-oppressive approach in social work (Baines 2007; Ruch 2005; Sanfelici 2024), as it avoids subordinating individuals to service-driven logics or to goals of normalization within dominant social and cultural frameworks. Instead, it seeks to grasp individuals’ perspectives—especially those of marginalized people—and to respect their agency.

While this clearly benefits the recipients of social love, these interventions also foster a specific form of relationality from which social service professionals themselves benefit. These benefits are not economic or instrumental, but rather emotional and existential, taking the form of personal satisfaction, enhanced self-esteem and self-efficacy, renewed motivation, and a recovery of the authentic meaning of one’s work. In this sense, social work does not consist merely in the administrative control of formal eligibility criteria or in the delivery of standardized services. Rather, it involves accompanying individuals in re-integrating into networks of meaningful relationships that can support them in overcoming situations of stagnation or hardship. At the same time, through intersubjective processes, it contributes to transforming cultural patterns of misrecognition and related social policies, promoting greater respect for social rights and individuals’ opportunities for self-realization (Guidi and Mordeglia 2024).

As in social work practice, social love is not exhausted by interpersonal action; rather, it extends beyond the dyadic dimension to encompass broader forms of social engagement. The analyses presented above, in fact, have highlighted how actions of social love are oriented toward the territorial and community context of the person being supported, with the aim of involving this context in a process of empowerment. Such a process proves beneficial not only for the reintegration of the individual concerned, but also for preventing the recurrence of similar situations of hardship affecting others.

This openness reflects what Morley and Ife (2002) define as a “love of humanity.” On the one hand, it underscores the rootedness of social love in the recognition of a shared belonging to the human condition between social workers and service users; on the other, it highlights its inherently public dimension.

A further finding emerging from the interview analysis concerns the crucial role of emotions, which are closely intertwined with actions of social love. The centrality of emotions in social work practice has been widely acknowledged in the literature (Sicora 2026). The present analysis highlights their contribution in a specific context—interventions with people experiencing poverty—showing how emotions can help overcome conditions of stagnation and foster trajectories toward greater well-being for both service users and practitioners. These findings mirror those emerging from the analysis of the emotional experiences of people in poverty supported by social services, developed in another part of the aforementioned national research (Zenarolla 2024a, 2024b). That analysis highlighted the predominance of positive emotions among users—such as love, gratitude, thankfulness, and solidarity—which contribute not only to improving individual and family conditions but also to strengthening social cohesion.

The findings also show that emotions arising from empathetic relationships and a reflective professional stance can effectively integrate key dimensions of practice, including professional awareness, ethical commitment, inner listening, understanding of others’ meaning-making frameworks, the development of solidaristic alliances, and the strengthening of interpersonal and social trust.

Overall, the studies presented here confirm the existence of forms of professional agency generated by subjective tensions that produce social love and enable socially relevant outcomes. These outcomes, however, are not formally institutionalized, are not required within professional mandates, and are not generalizable, as they emerge in diverse and contingent situations.

The findings presented above, while confirming the presence of social love practices within social services, also reveal the difficulties social workers encounter in implementing them. As shown, such practices are enacted by only a limited number of professionals and tend to emerge primarily as forms of resistance to organizational and institutional arrangements perceived as oppressive, both for service users and for practitioners themselves.

Another critical aspect is the organizational and contractual framework within which relationships between professionals and users develop. Indeed, there remains a risk of discontinuity in relationships due to turnover or the interruption of intervention projects due to reduced funding or changes in policymakers’ orientation. Furthermore, the reciprocal bond may, in some cases, lead to dependence in those who are more vulnerable, failing to shift the relationship from a frontal to a lateral one. Finally, a further risk that should not be overlooked is the potential intrusion of service users’ suffering into social workers’ everyday lives.

In conclusion, it is important to acknowledge the limitations of this research. The studies conducted so far are exploratory and based on qualitative methodologies, and they rely on a relatively small sample of Italian social workers. Further research is therefore needed to examine how actions inspired by social love may vary in relation to gender, age, nationality, years of social work experience, local cultural contexts, religious orientations, and theoretical and technical approaches, as well as the organizational frameworks of services and the social policy environments within which social workers operate.