Customer Reviews

Contemporary Human Behavior Theory: A Critical Perspective for Social Work

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book pioneers in integrating theory about spiritual development into a human behavior text. In recent years the profession of social work has become aware of the importance of addressing spirituality with clients, but few social workers have been trained in formal theory about spiritual development. This book is one of the few which provides this content; thus it is a critical text for use in social work Human Behavior courses. The Council on Social Work Education has included spirituality in its latest curriculum guidelines, and this text provides a way to incorporate spirituality into social work education.

This book is an outstanding overview of a huge range of social theory/human behavior theory. It is true that some of the chapters are challenging, but I felt this was because the authors truly presented well-thought out, exhaustive synopses of each theory. This book not only was clear in presenting information about theories I was unfamiliar with in an effective way, but also presented interesting insights and great review of theories that I was already very familiar with. Considering how much is information is covered in this text density is to be expected, but it is well worth it!

This is a truly comprehensive theory textbook that covers complex theories in a manner that makes them accessible to the reader. The authors are to be applauded for making a critical analysis of theory a central component of each chapter and for including theories that most other textbooks have ignored.

the book has good information and is very throrough, but chapters are wordy and could probably be condensed. overall, the book is of good quality.

They said it would have a few highlights but it had hardly ANY! They said it would be here within two weeks and I had it within five business days. I will CERTAINLY be buying thru them again! :)

This book is extremely challenging to get through and understand. I was lost a great deal of the time and did not learn what I had hoped. I appreciate the inclusion of the spiritual aspects of theories in the book, but the authors seemed to forget about teaching in an understandable manner.

As a person with a reputation for using "big words" amongst my family and friends, I found this textbook to be unnecessarily difficult to understand. The authors tend to be biased toward certain theorists and theories instead of presenting the material objectively, and some chapters seemed to piece together strings of quotes from other authors (I don't know about you, but that's what I do when I'm not quite sure I'm grasping something). The chapter on phenomenology in particular was EXTREMELY difficult to understand what the authors were saying. I have my BA in Psychology and have been exposed to some of the theories presented in the textbook, so it was easier for me to understand certain chapters better than others, but without my previous training I would have struggled with those chapters as well. The structure and topics covered were good, just not written to be student-friendly. My 5 MSW classmates agree.

I am an undergraduate social work student who had to purchase this book for HBSE class. I did not like this book. It was difficult to understand, it seemed more like a Graduate School read. Most of the people in class did not like the book and our professor did not rely heavily on the material. For once, I was glad that we were using two different books in class. The time that the teacher did use material from the book, I had to go to the library to do additional research to put the pieces together so to speak. If you are a undergraduate student, find another book to understand social work theories and perspectives.