"The Missing Link: Contributions of the Neurosciences to Social Work Practice" is a supplementary textbook that provides critical missing knowledge about neuroscience and biology that social workers (and other non-medical psychosocial practitioners) need to provide effective services to the individuals, families, groups, and communities that they encounter professionally. It reviews the up-to-date findings from selected areas of neuroscience and present these in a way that persons without a medical background can understand. It shows how and why this new knowledge is needed, and to provide specific examples of how it can be utilized in social work practice.

Table of Contents

1. Linking to the Neuroscientific Revolution Linking What's Neuroscience, in a Nutshell? Social Neuroscience Book Contents 2. Tour of the Brain Selected Characteristics Selected Functions Selected Geographical Features 3. Neuroscience as Link: Transactional Model Overenthusiasm Underenthusiasm The Model 4. Linking to Social Work: Attaching and Bonding Attachment Theory: Bowlby's Missing Link Bonding (and Oxytocin) Understanding? 5. Linking to Social Work: Trauma 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 6. Linking to Social Work: Psychotherapy Understanding Practice Opportunities 7. Linking to Social Work: Psychotropic Medications and Drugs of Abuse Psychotropic Medications That Help Drugs That Hurt Transactional Model Revisited Clients' Peril Appendix: Teaching Suggestions References Index About the Author

About the Author

Rosemary Farmer is associate professor of social work at Virginia Commonwealth University from which she also earned her Ph.D. Her dissertation is entitled: Selected Effects of Underlying Neuropsychiatric Impairment on Adaptation of Persons with Schizophrenia to a Chronic Mental Illness. Within the Human Behavior in the Social Environment (HBSE) track, she teaches courses on HBSE; psychopharmacology; clinical experience; mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders, and family therapy. A prolific author, she has published numerous journal articles on psychopharmacology and neuroscience as they relate to clinical social work practice.