Chapter 3: The Biological Person

Chapter 3: The Biological Person. Please find the attached PowerPoint and lecture notes.

Main Points

1. The interior (proximal) environment involves the description and explanation of embodied conditions such as internal organ systems, genetics, interior psychological structures and processes, and so forth, perhaps with some inorganic objects such as pacemakers and other implanted activators embedded within the interior environment. Exterior (distal) environments are characterized as nonorganic conditions not contained within the skin’s perimeter (DePoy & Gilson, 2012). But the dividing line between interior and exterior is as blurred as what constitutes a body.
2. There are six biological systems that social workers are most likely to directly encounter in our work: the nervous system, the endocrine system, the immune system, the cardiovascular system, the musculoskeletal system, and the reproductive system.
3. The ways in which biological systems interact to produce health and disease.
4. In the past decade or so, biomedical researchers have proposed an ecobiodevelopmental framework for studying health and disease across the life course. The major focus of ecobiodevelopmental research is on the ways that early toxic stress disrupts brain development as well as the development in other biological systems. Use this framework to understand the relationship between interior health and exterior environments.

ASSiGNMENT:
Discussion: Read case study 3.1: Cheryl’s Legs and Head. 20-something female, rural Idaho, military, leg amputation, brain injury. Cheryl is in the young adulthood period, what impact could her health conditions have on her young adulthood development? What are the implications for the later phases of her life journey? How can you as a social worker /clinician help her in this journey?