The Theoretical Base of Clinical Sociology: Root Metaphors and Key Principles

The theoretical base of clinical sociology is analyzed through Pepper's root metaphor method. Practice is found to be framed by the analogy between society and a complex ecosystem. The resulting world hypothesis is identified as Ecologism, within which the four relatively adequate world hypotheses identified by Pepper (Formism, Mechanism, Contextualism and Organicism) take their place as complementary alternatives differentially informing or guiding practice with respect to the analysis of categories, evaluation of linkages, intervention at the microsocial level of social actors and mesosocial level of organizations and other integrated social systems, respectively. Examples are drawn from the literature, and key analytical and methodological principles are identified for practice at each level. "Clinical sociology ... is identified as the application of the sociological perspective to interventions or social change. . . . The field of clinical sociology . . . might be distinguished ... by its systematic theoretical base" (Gondolf, 1985:144). As the subdiscipline moves into an increasingly formal state of institutionalization, we need to specify that theoretical base as a guide to both thinking about and practicing clinical sociology. Glassner and Freedman (1979), Cohen (1981) and Straus (1985) have demonstrated the clinical implications of social theory. The next step is to identify the theoretical frame and basic premises of sociological practice as it has been conceived in its period of rebirth, 1977-1986. Following Pepper's (1942) "root metaphor" method, we begin with an analysis of world theories in social science, Correspondence to: Roger A. Straus, Ph.D., National Analysts, 400 Market Street, Philadelphia,