Human Growth and Development

Chris Beckett studied Psychology at Bristol University and qualified as a social worker at Bangor, North Wales, in 1980, going on to work for eighteen years as a social worker and social work manager, and then for fifteen years as a social work lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University and the University of East Anglia. He has had a parallel career for some time as a writer of fiction and is now a full-time writer. His novel, Dark Eden was the winner of the Arthur C. Clarke award for 2012. Hilary Taylor trained as a social worker after studying English at Oxford University, qualifying in 1973. At the beginning of her career she worked with all service user groups, and later in adult social care, mental health, group therapy and family mediation. She then moved into social work training and education, teaching at Anglia Ruskin University for nine years and also working as an independent practice teacher. She also trained as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, and now has a private counselling and psychotherapy practice.

Chapter 1: The Birth of a Human Being: What makes us who we are?
Chapter 2: Below the Surface: Unconscious processes and psychodynamic insights
Chapter 3: A Secure Base: The importance of attachment
Chapter 4: Learning to think: The developing ability to reason
Chapter 5: Learning without Thinking: Ideas from behaviourism
Chapter 6: Boy or Girl?: The development of sex and gender
Chapter 7: Who Am I Going to Be? Adolescence, identity and change
Chapter 8: Acting like a Grown-up: Challenges of adulthood
Chapter 9: Access to Adulthood: Growing up with disability
Chapter 10 No One is an Island: Family systems and their life cycle
Chapter 11 It Takes a Village: The wider context
Chapter 12: Coming to a Conclusion: The experience of growing old
Chapter 13: That Good Night: Death, dying and bereavement