Because life styles, values, social institutions, and "survival activities" differ in undeveloped rural areas from those in industrial societies, the techniques and approaches used by rural social workers must be adjusted to meet the needs of the population being dealt with. In forager and agricultural societies, social workers and other human service personnel intervene into kinship patterns, extended families, customs, rules, taboos, and obligations that are quite different from those in cities. The theoretical paraphernalia that works in industrial societies does not apply in native villages or small prairie towns; therefore, an analytical, rather than a general cataloguing approach in intervening becomes more effective. Social workers who are trained in industrial and technological societies must discover the current stage of the agricultural structure of the rural family they are working with, the economic and cultural needs of the individual family, and the local helping resources available, in order to determine the most effective counselling approaches to use in a successful and humane manner, without destroying the ways of the native people in each rural society. (JD)