Social work is currently undergoing a transformative phase as a profession and discipline. Societal processes of change such as individualization, pluralization, and differentiation are rendering traditional orientations in social work obsolete. The questions of what social work is and what societal functions it is supposed to fulfill are no longer clearly answerable. Social work science must also adapt to this reality. Therefore, concepts are needed that highlight and tolerate the overlooked contradictions, ambivalences, and paradoxes inherent in social work. This book demonstrates from scientific, social, and practical theoretical perspectives that social work is ambivalent and thus inherently postmodern at all levels of its societal differentiation.