This fully revised and expanded second edition of this introductory text for social workers provides a knowledge base about human development from conception to death and is packed with real-life case studies and useful pedagogy. Great for revision, there is a student-friendly reference section with glossary and overviews of key theories.

John Sudbery is now retired. He is an honorary senior lecturer at the University of Salford, UK, where he carried out his teaching, writing and research. As a social worker or supervisor he worked for many years with people of all ages and was an accredited psychotherapist.

Andrew Whittaker is Associate Professor and Head of Social Work at London South Bank University, UK, where he teaches Human Growth and Development. He was a Research Fellow at the Centre for Social Work Research at the Tavistock Clinic, an area director for the mental health charity Mind and a senior social worker in child protection and child and adolescent mental health teams.

List of figures; List of tables; Acknowledgments; Introduction; 1 Beginnings; 2 A secure base; 3 The developing child; 4 Transitions and adolescence; 5 Living independently; 6 Sex, love, work and children; 7 Maturity and some of its hazards; 8 Adulthood and ageing; 9 Dying, grief and mourning; 10 Fitting the pieces together; \Essential background; 1 The principles of heredity; 2 Attachment theory; 3 Bronfenbrenner's ecological model; 4 Psychoanalytic theories; 5 Piaget's theory of cognitive development; 6 Erikson's psychosocial theory of personality; 7 The humanistic models of Maslow and Rogers; 8 Learning and behavioural models; 9 Models of ageing: social disengagement theory, activity theory, feminist perspectives and political economy theory; 10 Three approaches to loss and grief; Glossary; Bibliography; Index