Adult Socialization and Social Work Practice

Abstract

■ Traditional theories, the author contends, have neglected the possibility of significant personality change In adulthood. Furthermore, they have underestimated the influence of social and cultural factors—especially the demands of the immediate social situation—on the adult's personality structure. The author describes concepts of adult socialization including normal transformation, conversion, commitment, and situational adjustment and considers them as much-needed supplements to traditional theories. ■ In the early stages of its history social work was so intimately bound up with the discipline of sociology that often the two were indistinguishable from each other, either by the general public or by academi cians. In the early twentieth century, how ever, there occurred a schism between the two fields that grew to such proportions that by the 1920's the do-gooders and the nose-counters regarded each other with mutual disdain. In seeking recogni tion as a pure science, sociology zealously followed the path of positivism and em piricism, concentrating primarily on the accumulation of raw data and the refine ment of research techniques. Finding it self increasingly hard put to utilize such alien endeavors in the formation of its knowledge base, social work turned to psy choanalytic theory as its chief authority in explaining human behavior. Psychoanaly sis helped fortify an already existing trend in social work toward treating the indi vidual. Although Freudian theory could hardly be considered less esoteric than so ciological theory, it did at least provide social work with a therapy-centered focus and a fairly coherent theory of personality structure.