ABSTRACT
Special leaders with the unique talent of “seeing it whole” have risen amongst us at critical points in the history and development of the social work profession. In 1942, Bertha Reynolds shared her vision that “the whole was more than the sum of its parts.” Her recognition that “group relations are inseparable from individual ones” and that social group work “is ahead (of social casework) in the appreciation and use of knowledge of mores and cultures and is at least as far advanced in the practice of democracy in human relationships” led her to see social group work and community organization as “the growing edge” of social work. It also led her to entitle her 1942 landmark work Learning And Teaching in the Practice of Social Work when there was yet no unified concept of social work practice as greater than the sum of its separate “primary methods” parts, social casework, social groupwork and community organization. It was her belief, in view of the context of her times, that “… It is important that the whole of social work move forward, emphasizing common elements rather than differences” (Reynolds, 1942, p. 11).
