ABSTRACT
This chapter describes selected findings from the study that have particular relevance for community- and family-centered approaches to services. It continues with a more extensive critique of individualism. There are strong cultural and professional forces supporting an ideology of individualism and diminishing commitment to families and communities. Numerous voices have been raised about the dominance of individualism and the decline of commitment to community in America. C. Lasch identified a "therapeutic sensibility" in contemporary US culture that reflects a hunger "for the feeling, the momentary illusion, of personal well-being, health and psychic security". Lasch suggests the personal life as socially significant, the social embeddedness of human life, the value of the interconnectedness of human life, and definitions of problems as social ills, collective grievances, and/or social discontent. Social work values have historically incorporated a sense of community Social work has been concerned with the client's social context and the social causes of problems.
