ABSTRACT
Social work treatment, which differs according to its specific purpose(s) and client challenges, capacities, and life situations, has been variously defined. Difficulties in goodness-of-fit requiring social work intervention can occur at any level, from the personal to the larger-scale political. The social worker's theoretical orientation shapes the intervention process. Psychotherapeutic work with older people involves the management of small deaths and intimations of mortality. The person–environment orientation involves "the technical flexibility of selecting interventions on the basis of a specific client/problem/ situation configuration". The family therapy movement began in the 1950s due to the perceived growth in the number of family-related problems, and to new information available about human behavior. While Functional-Age Model emphasizes a family-centered approach, it also provides principles and techniques with which to address the realistic need for individual social work services. Ethnicity becomes most apparent when individuals meet others who are culturally different from themselves.
