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This article is constructed around three points used by the author to introduce a reading of social practices, and of the beginnings of social work at the end of the nineteenth century, driven by a handful of strong-willed, single-minded women. This brings us to the beginnings of the professionalization of social work at the start of the twentieth century, and its spread after the Second World War. Psychoanalysis made its way into social work in the United States through the egopsychology movement. American social workers were trained by psychoanalysts, which gave rise to casework. In France, two pioneers of this methodology—Marie-Thérèse Vieillot, a social assistant, and Myriam David, a child psychiatrist and psychoanalyst—were responsible for its transmission.