Social Work History

In his clear, empathetic style, Jonathan Foiles, author of the critically acclaimed This City Is Killing Me, walks us through these and other troubling examples of bias in mental health, placing them in context of past blunders in the history of psychiatry and the DSM. Diagnoses are helpful but not necessary, he argues, and here he offers a pragmatic and sympathetic guide to how we might craft a better and more just therapeutic future.

This essay comes from the NPR series This I Believe, which features brief personal reflections from both famous and unknown Americans. The pieces that make up the series compel listeners to rethink not only what and how they have arrived at their beliefs, but also the extent to which they share them with others.

Imagine a world with a robot in every home, office, and hospital. While many people may not yet be able to fully conceptualize it, this is the future that awaits us. The robot revolution will change our lives in ways we can't even yet imagine. With rapid advances in robotics technology, artificial intelligence, and battery energy storage, society is on the cusp of witnessing a breakthrough in a new kind of industrial revolution—one that will see intelligent robots playing an increasingly important role in our everyday lives.

In Beastly Brains, Nancy Castaldo delves into the minds of animals and explores animal empathy, communication, tool use, and social societies through interviews and historical anecdotes. Researchers from Charles Darwin to Jane Goodall have spent years analyzing the minds of animals, and today's science is revolutionizing old theories and uncovering surprising similarities to our own minds. Humans are not alone in our ability to think.

Remigius dei Girolami, a Dominican friar and lector in the Santa Maria Novella church in Florence as well as a political philosopher and theologian, wrote in the context of the Guelf-Ghibbeline conflict in Florence in the early 14th century. Unfortunately, Remigius is rather poorly known, as he is eclipsed by his more famous teacher, Thomas Aquinas, and his Florentine contemporary, Dante Alighieri. Nevertheless, Remigius authored an impressive array of texts, ranging in topic from theology to science to music to politics.

Now more than ever, it's so important for everyone to understand our government: where it came from, how it works, and how we can bring about change. And, after all, in the words of author and government teacher Jeff Foster, "If you don't participate, you can't complain." This book is a comprehensive and entertaining guide that answers questions like: What is the Constitution? What are the branches of the government? What is the Electoral College? What are the political parties? What are the different responsibilities of the city, state, and federal governments?

This essay comes from the NPR series This I Believe, which features brief personal reflections from both famous and unknown Americans. The pieces that make up the series compel listeners to rethink not only what and how they have arrived at their beliefs, but also the extent to which they share them with others.

American Nobel Peace Prize winner, philosopher, sociologist, and suffragette Jane Addams is known as the "mother" of social work. Her writing as well as her activism laid the foundation for many of the positive social services and theories we take for granted. In "The Subjective Necessity of Social Settlements", first published in 1892, she discusses in a compelling and fair-minded way the case for settlement living, living and working amongst those who need help most. As with all other Addams’ work, the emotional is inexorably tied to the logical and factual.

This essay comes from the NPR series This I Believe, which features brief personal reflections from both famous and unknown Americans. The pieces that make up the series compel listeners to rethink not only what and how they have arrived at their beliefs, but also the extent to which they share them with others.