Includes bibliographical references and index.

Social work students and some practitioners often struggle to get their head around the application of theory and associated methods of intervention derived from the social sciences to social work practice. This book offers a fresh approach written with the 'non- theoretician' in mind. After exploring the expectations and limits of application of theory to practice, the author sets about describing theories of explanation and their associated methods of intervention. He follows this by looking at theoretically driven approaches and their associated methods of intervention. One generic case study is used throughout, tweaked slightly but maintaining the same service users and presenting issues so the reader can see how the theory of explanation or approach and the associated method of intervention is applied.