The systems approach

Interest in the application of systems theory to social work gathered momentum in the late 1950s and 1960s (e. g. Buckley 1967, Hearn 1968) and reached its height with the publication of major American texts by Howard Goldstein and Pincus and Minahan in 1973. These and other texts that proclaimed a 'unitary' perspective were used widely on social work training courses in the UK during the 1970s and beyond together with the important 'bridging' text of Specht and Vickery, Integrating Social Work Methods (1977).