My essay will explore developmental theories relating to adolescence and the advantages and disadvantages of using these theories within Social Work. Adolescence is the link between childhood and adulthood and Santock highlights (p.356) that as well as Biological and genetic development we must consider a child’s environment, social interaction and culture as this will also influence how a child develops into an adult.
There are four stages to Piaget’s theory with the forth and final stage being the Formal Operational stage beginning when a child is eleven years old. Teenagers could now begin to think logically about different situations, have ideas and dreams about what the future holds for them. They are able to imagine certain situations …show more content…
The main function of this stage is to encourage the libido into a healthy sexual relationship. As highlighted by Salkind (2004, p.132) during adolescence the ego and superego undergoes many changes and insufficient development of any of the previous stages could result in problems such as mental heath and behavioural problems. Psychodynamic theory also claims that early traumatic childhood experiences that may have been too painful to deal with at the time can buried within the child’s unconscious mind. Although the child is not aware of the memory it continues to shape their personality and behaviour possibly effecting current and future relationships. The Psychodynamic approach recommends getting to the root of the problem and address the issues relating to the unwanted behaviour through therapy and counselling. Although within Social Work it was commonly used in the 1960’ and 1970’s the use of this theory has progressively declined in recent years (Siobhan Maclean page 177). Eysenck (2000 p.20) highlights the disadvantages to this approach being the lack of scientific evidence making it impossible to test his theories. Freud worked with only a small minority of women who were mainly middle class women in Vienna and not a true representation of the population as a
There are four stages to Piaget’s theory with the forth and final stage being the Formal Operational stage beginning when a child is eleven years old. Teenagers could now begin to think logically about different situations, have ideas and dreams about what the future holds for them. They are able to imagine certain situations …show more content…
The main function of this stage is to encourage the libido into a healthy sexual relationship. As highlighted by Salkind (2004, p.132) during adolescence the ego and superego undergoes many changes and insufficient development of any of the previous stages could result in problems such as mental heath and behavioural problems. Psychodynamic theory also claims that early traumatic childhood experiences that may have been too painful to deal with at the time can buried within the child’s unconscious mind. Although the child is not aware of the memory it continues to shape their personality and behaviour possibly effecting current and future relationships. The Psychodynamic approach recommends getting to the root of the problem and address the issues relating to the unwanted behaviour through therapy and counselling. Although within Social Work it was commonly used in the 1960’ and 1970’s the use of this theory has progressively declined in recent years (Siobhan Maclean page 177). Eysenck (2000 p.20) highlights the disadvantages to this approach being the lack of scientific evidence making it impossible to test his theories. Freud worked with only a small minority of women who were mainly middle class women in Vienna and not a true representation of the population as a