East Meets West: A Nonlinear Model for Understanding Human Growth and Development

Life-span theories (e.g., Erikson) represent a cornerstone in social work education and practice. We believe these theories that articulate development as a sequence of stages deserve closer scrutiny and could be strengthened through application of nonlinear views for understanding human growth and development. For our purposes, Taoist principles provide this nonlinear perspective. In this article, we provide a summary of Erikson's writings, introduce four Taoist principles as a means of critiquing and expanding on Erikson's work, propose a model for understanding human growth and development that integrates these Taoist principles, and discuss implications for social work education and practice.