 Hello learners, welcome to this video session where I will be talking about this course Human Growth and Development. It is a course of BSW first semester that basically deals with psychology as one of the foundation courses of the BSW program. I am Dr. Mirishmita Dwarah, Assistant Professor of Social Work, Krishnakanta Khandikore State Open University. So let us start by discussing about the core structure of BSW first semester. It consists of these four theoretical papers and two components of fieldwork and orientation visit. The first one is general English one, Alternative English or MIL, Human Growth and Development which I will be discussing today, the first unit and then the four courses historical and philosophical foundations of social work. There are also two more components of fieldwork and orientation which are usually combined as a paper of fieldwork and this has been discussed in another video section where I have discussed fieldwork specific to BSW first and second semester during the pandemic situation and in general times we have a different format where we will be discussing the fieldwork and orientation visit structure. So let us start by understanding this particular course that is human growth and development. As I told you this is basically the foundation course of BSW that deals with psychological concepts. This course will introduce you to a varied range of important perspectives and concepts of psychology, human behavior and the stages of human growth and behavior. So let us start and the main objective of this course is to understand the factors that contribute to development of personality of any individual. This course will help in understanding the psychological factors affecting human behavior, emotions, needs and the transformation in each state as a person grows from infant to an adult and then to old age. So another objective of this particular course is to understand the concepts that will be beneficial to social workers in understanding human behavior better and to identify the physical, psychological and social changes of various developmental stages of human growth and development. So let us start with unit one. The unit one deals with the concept of psychology and it tries to explain to you why psychology as a social science is important in social work. So this unit, the unit one gives a basic understanding of psychology as a social science then its relation to psychology is relation to social work profession then to understand how the application of psychology in social systems and its relation to health and pro-social behavior that I will be explaining you these two concepts later and to explain the stages of human growth and development as the person grows from childhood to old age. So let us start by the meaning of psychology. What is the meaning of the concept of psychology? Psychology is a social science as we all know. Psychology can be defined as the science which explains a living organism's behavior, how they think and how they behave and based on that what they feel their behavior is showcased. So the word psychology has been derived from the two Greek words psyche and logos. Psychology means spirit or soul and the word logos means science or course of study. In short it is a scientific study of mental processes behavior and attitude of any individual. Introduction to psychology, again here psychology implies understanding of the biological and social basis of human behavior. So the word behavior here we are specifically studying human behavior and not any other animal psychology or animal behavior we are concentrating on the concept of human behavior and we will see how human behavior and development has a correlation. For social work professionals psychology will help in understanding the self that means once all individual personality and also in assessing the behavior of others. So in the other paper which is historical and philosophical foundations you will come across the terms and the methods of social work in that there are various methods of social work, six methods of social work and you will see that while practicing these methods of social work it is very important to understand an individual's behavior and also the person's behavior in relation to the other societal members. The psychology analyzes and presents data in a way that can be organized as a scientific knowledge. So therefore it uses methods of biological and social sciences to obtain data systematically that is why psychology is said to be a science of understanding human behavior. Now let us understand what is the relation of psychology and why it is important for social work profession. Social work is a profession that requires variety of emotional and psychological skills in addition to formal academic training. Therefore when you are being trained as a social worker you need to understand that as a social worker as a professional you will have to understand firstly your own behavior and then understand the behavior of your client. Now who is the client? The client is the person who comes to you seeking help. Therefore it is very important to understand your own personality, your own behavior and the personality of your clients so that you can decide whether you will be able to help the client in solving his particular problem or not. Therefore social workers need to know some basic psychological principles so that it helps in analyzing human behavior and to bring about desire changes in your client and sometimes also if you realize for yourself you need to bring about certain changes within yourself. This is necessary in case of solving human problems related to social environment when a client has just mental problems in adjusting with the family or maybe the society or groups or community in which the client is living. Therefore if first of all psychology will help a social worker to understand the behavior of that particular client and motivating people in group or for better group performance and overall community development you need to have the basic understanding of psychology. In understanding human psychology, human development stages develop sense of empathy, empathy I will tell you the meaning of this particular term after sometime and the ability to facilitate cooperation among different individuals groups. You have to develop active listening skills and critical thinking skills so that you are able to take in the problem that the client is presenting to you. These are extremely important for an efficient social worker and therefore social work as a profession as a discipline draws heavily from the discipline of psychology. Without the socio-psychological understanding of a client you will not be able to get 100% involved in the person's problem and try to understand from the perspective of the client. Therefore psychology is important for social work profession. Now let us see what is the meaning of social psychology. Social psychology is a branch of psychology that deals with the humans, the people, how they behave and what is influencing their behavior. How others influence the behavior of an individual. Therefore the word social psychology has two things in this particular concept. The word social means of the society and psychology is the study of the human mind. Therefore you have to analyze the behavior of the individual, how and when the person is living in a particular society and how the person is behaving while that person is surrounded by people or while that person is dealing with his own particular group may be the family, the group, the professional group, the community. So therefore you will see how the person is behaving in the social setup. That is why it is social psychology.