Social work theory, explained

Psychodynamic theory is a family of explanations holding that behaviour, emotion and relationships are shaped by mental processes that operate partly outside conscious awareness.

Behavioural and learning theories explain behaviour as the product of learning: people acquire, maintain and change behaviour through their interactions with the environment.

Cognitive theories explain emotion and behaviour through the way people perceive, interpret and process information. Their central claim is that it is a person's appraisal of an event, more than the event itself, that shapes how they feel and act.

Humanistic, existential and phenomenological theories place the person's subjective experience at the centre of understanding.

Developmental and life-course theories explain how people grow and change from birth to old age, and how earlier experiences shape later outcomes.

General systems theory is a framework for understanding any organised whole, whether a cell, a person, a family, an organisation or a society, as a set of interrelated parts that function together.

Family systems theory applies systems thinking (see B1) to the family. It treats the family as an emotional and relational unit in which each member's behaviour is shaped by, and helps to shape, the behaviour of the others.

Ecological systems theory is a theory of human development proposed by the American developmental psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner.

Person-in-environment (PIE) is the perspective that people can only be understood in relation to their social and physical environments, and that social work's distinctive focus lies at the point where people and environments meet.

Communication and interaction theories explain how people create, maintain and change relationships through the messages they exchange.

Social network theory explains social life in terms of the patterns of relationships that connect people, groups and organisations.

Intergenerational and transgenerational approaches explain how patterns of relating, expectations, resources and unresolved experiences pass between generations in families and communities.

The ecological perspective in social work explains human wellbeing as the outcome of continuous exchanges between people and their environments.

The social determinants of health are the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age, and the wider distribution of power, money and resources that shapes those conditions.

Social capital theory explains how relationships and social networks give people access to resources that they could not obtain alone.

Social support theory explains how the help, care and resources that people receive from their relationships protect health and wellbeing.

Stress and coping theory explains how people experience and respond to demands that challenge their resources. Early physiological research described stress as the body's response to any demand.

Resilience theory explains why some people do well despite exposure to serious adversity. Resilience is generally defined as a dynamic process of positive adaptation in the context of significant adversity.

Risk and protective factor frameworks explain the likelihood of adverse outcomes as the product of interacting vulnerabilities and buffers across individual, family, school, peer and community levels.

Community and environmental theories explain how the places where people live, and their physical and social environments, shape wellbeing and life chances.

Marxist and political-economic theories explain social problems as products of the way a society organises production, distributes wealth and allocates power.

Critical theory is a tradition of social philosophy that analyses society in order to change it.

Feminist and gender theories examine how gender organises social life, distributes power and resources, and shapes identity and experience.

Anti-oppressive, anti-racist and decolonial theories explain how oppression based on race, colonisation, gender, class, disability, sexuality and other social divisions is produced and maintained, and they guide practice that challenges it.

Theories of power, governance and institutions examine how social order is produced through knowledge, language, classification and organisations.

Theories of social stratification and inequality explain how societies rank groups of people and distribute resources, status and life chances unequally between them.

The strengths perspective is a social work practice perspective that directs attention to the capacities, aspirations and resources of people and their environments as the main basis for change.

Empowerment theory explains how people who lack power gain greater control over their lives, their relationships and the conditions that affect them.

Resilience refers to positive adaptation, or the maintenance and recovery of wellbeing, in the context of significant adversity. Read from a strengths angle, resilience is something people do as well as something they have.

Self-determination theory (SDT) is a theory of human motivation, development and wellbeing developed by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan.

Hope theory, developed by C. R. Snyder, defines hope as a way of thinking that combines agency (the determination to reach goals) and pathways (the ability to plan routes to them).

Narrative theory holds that people make sense of their experience, identity and relationships by organising events into stories. A narrative links events across time, gives them a sequence and a point, and places the self within them.

Social constructionism is a theoretical perspective that holds that much of what people take to be real, natural or self-evident is produced through social interaction, language and shared practices.

Recovery-oriented approaches are ways of designing and delivering mental health services that support people to live a satisfying, hopeful and contributing life, as defined by the person, with or without ongoing symptoms.

The capabilities approach is a framework for assessing human wellbeing and social arrangements in terms of what people are actually able to do and to be.

Community development theory explains how people who share a place, identity or concern can work together to identify their own needs, build their capacities and change the conditions that affect them.

Social capital refers to the networks, norms of reciprocity and trust that enable people to act together and gain access to resources.

Social movement theory explains how and why people come together in sustained, collective campaigns to promote or resist social change outside routine political channels.

Collective action theories explain when and how people cooperate to pursue shared interests, and why cooperation often fails even when everyone would benefit.

Participatory and emancipatory development refers to a group of theories and methods holding that people affected by poverty, oppression or exclusion should be active agents in analysing their situation and deciding how to change it.

Community empowerment is the process by which groups of people with shared interests gain greater collective control over the decisions, resources and conditions that affect their lives.

Organisational and institutional change theories explain how organisations alter their structures, cultures and practices, and why they often resist doing so. Some theories are prescriptive models for leading planned change.

Social change and modernisation theories are broad sociological explanations of how societies transform over long periods, particularly in the shift from agrarian and traditional societies to industrial and late modern ones.

Diffusion of innovations theory explains how new ideas, practices and technologies spread through a social system over time.

Collective efficacy and neighbourhood effects theories explain how the places where people live shape their wellbeing, safety and life chances, over and above their individual and family characteristics.

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature, sources and limits of knowledge. It asks what counts as knowledge, how claims can be justified and who is entitled to make them.

The interpretive and meaning-making traditions are a group of philosophical and sociological approaches that study how people understand their world and act on the basis of those understandings.

Social constructionism is a perspective holding that much of what people treat as natural or self-evident reality is produced through social processes, especially language and shared practices.

Reflective practice is the process by which professionals examine their experience in order to learn from it and improve what they do.

Critical reflection is a process of examining the deeply held assumptions that underlie practice, with particular attention to how those assumptions connect to power and social structures.

Ethics is the branch of philosophy concerned with right action, good character and how people should treat one another.

Evidence-informed practice is an approach to professional decision-making that integrates the best available research evidence with professional judgement, the values and preferences of service users, and the circumstances of the practice context.

Anti-oppressive and culturally responsive professional practice refers to the professional frameworks through which social workers put a commitment to social justice and cultural respect into everyday work.

Psychosocial approaches understand a person's difficulties as the product of interaction between their inner psychological world and their outer social circumstances.

The biopsychosocial perspective holds that health, illness and distress arise from the interaction of biological, psychological and social factors, and that none of these levels can be understood in isolation.

Task-centred practice is a short-term, structured model of social work in which worker and client agree on a small number of problems that the client wants to resolve and then work on them through specific, achievable tasks within an agreed time limit.

Crisis intervention is a short-term, active approach to helping people whose usual ways of coping have been overwhelmed by a stressful event.

Solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT) is a future-oriented, goal-directed approach that helps clients build solutions by describing the life they want and identifying what they are already doing that works.

Motivational interviewing (MI) is a collaborative, goal-oriented style of communication designed to strengthen a person's own motivation and commitment to change.

Trauma-informed practice is a framework for organising services and relationships around an understanding of how trauma affects people's lives. It is a way of working that applies across a whole service, from first contact to policy and staff support.

Cognitive-behavioural interventions are structured, time-limited methods that apply learning theory and cognitive theory to help people change patterns of thinking, feeling and behaviour.

Narrative therapy is a collaborative approach to counselling and community work developed by Michael White in Adelaide and David Epston in Auckland.

Family and systemic interventions apply systems theory to work with couples, families and the networks around them. They treat individual difficulties as connected to patterns of interaction, relationships and family history.

Group work is a method of social work practice in which a worker helps a small group of people meet individual and collective goals through their interaction with one another.

Integrated and eclectic practice refers to the deliberate selection and combination of theories, models and techniques to fit the needs of a particular person, problem and setting.