Understandings of as well as negotiations about change are constantly present in social work practice and in many instances these are decisive for how social work is formed. Employing discourse theories, this article analyses interpretative repertoires used by social workers in describing how they experience change and absence of change among clients having substance abuse problems, and how they position themselves accordingly. Examination of data drawn from interviews with counsellors working for the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration reveal three distinct subject positions in their discursive constructions of change and absence of change. These include (a) ‘the position of despair’, (b) ‘the position of limited professional responsibility’ and (c) ‘the position of resistance’ – each with its own distinctive set of interpretative repertoires. The article relates these to the complexities and varieties of constructions and understandings of change involved in working with substance abusing clients, where the counsellors’ experiences of success and of responsibility have central roles. In addition, the article shows that the institutional context is often significant for how change is constructed and understood by the counsellors.
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