This study offers a new approach to professional practice by considering the everyday activities of social workers as performances of storytelling and persuasion. Social workers tell stories in which clients and professionals become characters in complex plots. In reports, files and conversations, facts are not merely reported but cases are told by intriguing the reader and persuading important audiences, using traditional narrative conventions.At the same time Dr. Hall turns the narrative analysis on his own writing. In 'reflexive detours' the researcher's claims and descriptions are treated as open to a similar textual analysis as those of the characters he studies. Handling critical voices is a problem for both researchers and social workers.Themes of social construction, the theory of the reader and narrative analysis are developed from recent work in the sociology of science, sociolinguistics and literary theory. Issues of policy are also raised and links are made to other discursive approaches to the study of professions. The study raises fundamental questions about professional work, the nature of research and social theory