u    Mental Illness (MI) can result in a major depression or psychosis.

u    Trauma can result in a major depression or psychosis.

u    Substance Abuse (SA) can result in a major depression or psychosis.

• INTEREST 1:   The Socialization Instinct: Individual, Family, and Social Bonds

This theory is designed to attract the interest of those who are looking for a

theory that unifies the biological, psychological, and sociological paradigms.

In this process, social bond theory can play an important role. The experiences

that affect attachment have a life long impact on the person.

Social Bond theory also demonstrates how the three major branches of science

can be used in concert to explain more precisely human behavior. This is an

approach that explains human behavior better than anyone of the three major

 branches of scientific inquiry does alone.

 Social Bond Defined (CY, 12-18-02).

A qualitative definition for the difference between social supports and social bonds

 

 

 

can be illustrated using the research with Rhesus Monkeys in the 1970s.

A Social Support is like Harry Harlow’s wire monkey mother with a milk bottle.

A Social Bond is like Harry Harlow’s terry cloth monkey mother.

Which would you prefer?  Freud would say the wire mother with the milk bottle. 

The neonate monkeys choose the terry cloth mother monkey.  Which would you choice?

This is an excellent short book by Harlow that rings true today.

Harlow, H. F. (1974). Learning to love. NY: Jason Aronson, Inc.  This is a great book. 

Real short but with profound implications for humans.

• INTEREST 2:   MENTAL HEALTH

  My study, work, and research in mental health is meant to assuage some of the stigma

  that has so harmed people who experience a mental disorder, and to help support the

  families who struggle with guilt and the inability to do more for their child or sibling with

  a mental disorder.

Under the umbrella of Mental Health, I am interested in: the seriously mentally ill, the

 

onset of a mental illness, those with a dual diagnoses, children's mental health, the affect

 

of environment on mental health, the affects of trauma, PTSD, and prevention, treatment,

 

and the paths to recovery. 

The ethical challenge of the Serious Mentally Ill

What if you became seriously mentally ill, what would you want the rest of us to

do for you?  Let’s say you came from a middle class family and had a college

education.  However, the psychotic episodes came and went until you were left,

somewhat paranoid and with delusional thoughts that you could not let anyone

near you.  Over several weeks you became disoriented and began living on the

streets.  You were fearful of people who knew you and where you lived.  Then

one evening several teenage boys saw you and beat you up to show how tough

they were.  When the police officers arrived, you though they were there to

kill you.  You struck one of them in your effort to escape.  They had to use

Mace on you to control your aggressive and violent behavior, and to get you

in handcuffs.

If this were you, or one of your siblings, a parent, or one of your children,

how would you want society, the police, the courts, and mental practitioners

to handle your case?

• INTEREST 3:   APPLIED SOCIAL WORK RESEARCH

  The applied social work research study is a method utilized to assist in the

  development of new interventions, programs, and knowledge that will help

  alleviate some type of human problem.  It can be used to validate the degree of

  success or failure of the new program, intervention, etc. It is a research approach

  that may use several of the methods mentioned above.  This approach is

  incorporated into the design of an intervention to test the interventions effectiveness

  in the field as it is being provided.

• INTEREST 4:   Social Work Theory and Evolutionary Science

  In March of 1995 I was talking with Dr. Carol Myers (the major proponent of the

  ecological perspective) about the role Evolutionary Science must play in the future of

  Social Work Theory.  When I suggested that as a profession we should begin to

  reinterpret our observations of human behavior based on Evolutionary theory, she

  said, "Good luck!"

  Later, it occurred to me, we will need luck to move social work theory toward the

  sounder base of evolutionary science.  Why?  Not because there is any real competition

  between our Freudian Metaphors and the scientific principals of evolutionary science

  but because we have so much time, energy, and work invested in developing and

  maintaining a perspective based on a metaphor.

  I am not saying Freud’s metaphoric thinking took him to an incorrect conclusion about

  human nature. I am just making the observation that his conclusions are based on a

  metaphor.  Quite simply, I am asking why we base social work theory on a metaphor

  when we can ground it in scientific principals, scientific principals that apply to humans

  and other animal life forms across the board?

  INTEREST 5:   ANTHROPOLOGICAL MENTAL HEALTH

  In the past, anthropologists have made little use of the available knowledge of mental

  health and its influence on individual and group behavior among humans.  This is

  somewhat understandable.  The field of mental health is young and has only recently begun

  to understand the physiology of mental health problems such as stress, anxiety, depression,

  psychoses, and other mental disorders.  This is not to say that anthropologists and historians

  have totally ignored mental illness.  Historians have pointed out historical figures that were

  reported to have had a mental disorder, and some of the person’s bizarre behaviors are

  reported.  However, these scholars have for the most part ignored the influence of mental

  health problems on everyday life, and the influence a mental illness can have on the larger

  society, especially when the person with a mental illness is in a position of leadership and

  power. 

  Applying knowledge of mental health to the study of human behavior, and the social, and

  cultural development of humans can better explain many of the purported mysteries of

  ancient people that seem to defy logic and understanding.  For instance, explaining why

  humans have consumed large amounts of intoxicating drugs over the centuries is

  understandable when the use of drugs that produce low levels of euphoria are viewed

  from the mental health paradigm.  When ingested euphoric drugs (both natural and

  synthetic), they change the chemical make-up of the body, which changes the subjective

  psychological experience from feelings of stress, anxiety, and depression to feelings of

  calmness, peacefulness, happiness, and feelings of self-satisfaction.

  Some of the drugs used by ancient people were called by names indicating that the

  drug was a “gift from the gods.”

  The application of mental health concepts to understanding the behavior of ancient peoples

  begins with the undisputable observation that in today’s world mental health plays a

  substantial role in human behavior.  Based on the preceding assumption, it is then logical to

  presume that mental health played a major role in shaping human behavior over the

  millenniums.

  Are you also interested in these areas?