During this article, we discuss options of theory-building in social work against the background of an ongoing empiricisat ion of disciplinary knowledge production. We start the following two observation: Firstly , there is a relative decrease of sig­ nificance of theories of social work . Second ly, there is an enormo us increase of significance of empirical resear ch in social work over the course of the past years. We subsequently discuss what results from this situation, given the fact that there is a well-establi shed claim in the (German) academic debate on social work to develop a grand theory of social work . Eventually, we wil l present the outlines of a program called "reflexive empiricisation " that allows for two things: an empirical Ob­ servation of exi sting theories of social work on the one hand, and a more decided development of theories of social work based on empirical research on the other