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December, 2008 | SAGE Publications, Inc

Neuroscience and Social Work Practice

The Missing Link


Rosemary L. Farmer
- Virginia Commonwealth University, USA
200 pages | December, 2008 | SAGE Publications, Inc
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ISBN: 9781483366289
Hardcover
ISBN: 9781412926973
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ISBN: 9781412926980
$115.00
Instant Access!
eBook
ISBN: 9781483366289

Over the past 30 years, findings in the neurosciences have grown exponentially and have provided a profound understanding of the link between behavior and biology. Although the Social Work community has long taken pride in using a bio-psycho-social-spiritual (BPSS) framework in conceptualization and intervention, the biological aspect of this BPSS framework has been sorely missing. Neuroscience and Social Work Practice provides the critical missing link. Introducing the latest neuroscience research, it gives practitioners essential data—in an easily accessible form—with which to take on the challenges of increasingly complex human problems and diagnoses.

Key Features

  • Takes readers on a "tour of the brain" and makes dense scientific material more engaging 
  • Provides a framework for how human service professionals can understand and implement neuroscience clinical data with the use of the Transactional Model
  • Uses case vignettes to explain how neuroscience findings have been applied to specific practice situations
  • Offers a deeper understanding of the links between neuroscience research and social work in such areas as trauma, attachment, psychotherapy, substance abuse, and the effects of psychotropic medications


Intended Audience
This cutting-edge text is indispensable for practitioners in the human services field and is an essential supplement for upper-level undergraduate or graduate students of courses in Human Behavior in the Social Environment and Social Work Direct Practice as well as courses on Interpersonal Practice with Individuals, Children, and Families.

Linking
What's Neuroscience, in a Nutshell?
Social Neuroscience
Book Contents

Selected Characteristics
Selected Functions
Selected Geographical Features

Overenthusiasm
Underenthusiasm
The Model

Attachment Theory: Bowlby’s Missing Link
Bonding (and Oxytocin)
Understanding?

Increase Reliance on Science-Based Explanations
Incidence and Severity of Problems Linked to Trauma
Darryl: The Quest for Better Social Work Practice
A Neurodevelopmental View
A Multidimensional View
Advocating
Deeper Than It Need Be

Understanding
Practice
Opportunities

Psychotropic Medications That Help
Drugs That Hurt
Transactional Model Revisited
Clients’ Peril
Appendix: Teaching Suggestions
References
Index
About the Author
  • Tours the brain: Helps to make difficult material a bit playful and more interesting, via the imagery of a journey; provides ten characteristics of the brain and selected brain structures.
  • Use of the metaphorical term "Linking" throughout the book. This is given additional meaning by the use of the Transactional Model.
  • Use of the Transactional Model. It provides a conceptual framework for gathering and understanding clinical data and using it in practice; it helps to not be under- or over-enthusiastic about any one domain of the bio-psycho-social-spiritual-challenge in living.
  • Case vignettes are dispersed throughout the book.
  • Deeper understanding (based on neuroscience research) of social work practice in such areas as trauma, psychotherapy, and substance abuse.
  • Deeper understanding (based on neuroscience research) of individual variations in the effects of psychotropic medications.