Book Review: Neurobiology for Clinical Social Work, 2nd Ed.

While social workers have long espoused the importance of relationships and their impact on our psychological functioning, truly understanding those relationships requires understanding the brain as a social organ. As Louis Cozolino, one of the nation’s leading authorities on neuroscience, says, “Each generation of mental health practitioners needs to be taught that although we look like separate beings, we are connected in deep and profound ways we are still coming to understand.” In their latest edition of Neurobiology for Clinical Social Work: Theory and Practice, Janet R. Shapiro and Jeffrey S. Applegate dive into this new world to offer a foundational understanding of how neuroscience can inform not just a more sensitive and empathic practice, but one that is highly attuned to the physiological implications of trauma. Human development is both complex and dynamic, intertwined with environmental factors, and changing in ways that are often not linear. Shapiro and Applegate write, “As applied to the study of brain development, a nonlinear dynamic systems approach considers brain and nervous system development as a fluid process,” that is equally affected by innate individual factors and the relational and external environment. Because of the complex interplay of environmental and person-specific factors, neurobiology has become an important part of understanding many psychological and behavioral phenomena, especially trauma. We now know there are sensitive de...
Source: Psych Central - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Tags: Book Reviews Disorders General Neuroscience Personality Psychological Assessment Psychology Psychotherapy Trauma Treatment epigenetics Neurobiology Neurobiology For Clinical Social Work Physiology Source Type: news