in extremis

Military records describing the deaths of men as a result of injuries sustained during combat employed the phrase in a (now near-obsolete) sense to describe a man on the verge of dying: […] 'He was in extremis when seen and died about 2 hours after the action ceased at 9 pm'.

This book sets out to look at what we have termed 'social work in extremis'. It is an attempt to bring together a number of case studies that look at social work responses in 'extreme' or crisis situations.