Psychological theories can support our understanding of client needs. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of a range of theories and evaluate their effectiveness in practice In this essay we will be looking how the psychological theories can support our understanding of client needs and then I will be discussing the strengths and weaknesses of three well known theorists and will be critising the theories and evaluating their practice within our society.
The three chosen theorists I will be looking at are, John Bowby, Jean Piaget and J and J Robertson. In this essay, I am will be looking and individual client and I have chosen children to support these theories. Children at nurtured before birth and then as they grow older, they become adolescents and then finally mature adults. But as children is quite broad area I am mainly looking at those under five years of age. In the past, children were mainly looked after by their birth mother whilst the father was working to support the family.
But a lot of things have changed over the last hundred years, there came a time when the advice was given to parents that you should “Never hug or kiss [your children], never let them sit on your lap. If you must, kiss them on the forehead when they say goodnight” (Watson, 1928) But such would not happen today in society. Also throughout history adults have recognised children as an important part of development and many psychologists would talk about the “lifespan development” and how adults would grow as psychogically as time went om, however this essay is on the development of children.
Also some might say that culture and upbringing might have impact on a child’s life. In the past children we expected to take on roles as mini adults and older children and teenagers were like adults to the younger siblings. These children and young people were expected to work from a young age and/or help with life at home. Very few went to school and if they were at school, it would be out of hours and it was not considered important.
Mary Ellen was the first case of child abuse in the nineteenth century and this was brought to the court’s attention to realise that children are not just their parents’ possessions, but children are individuals with their own rights and responsibilities and should have welfare rights. What happened was that the neighbours objected to the way how Mary was been treated and at the time, the only law that was available only concerned animals and law argued that the child was a member of the animal kingdom (Flanagan, 1999, pg 3)