Value-based praxis in community psychology: moving toward social justice and social action

The purpose of this paper is to articulate a rationale for value-based praxis in community psychology. Although values need to promote personal, collective, and relational wellness at the same time, it is argued that community psychologists pay more attention to personal and relational wellness than to collective wellness. In order to address this imbalance it is important to promote the value of social justice. While praxis requires that we engage in a cycle of reflection, research, and social action, community psychologists devote more resources to the first two phases of praxis than to the last one. This paper offers a framework for deciding what values and what praxis considerations we should attend to and how we may advance social justice and social action in community psychology.     

Developing theories and models to serve: A manifesto for indigenous psychologists

This article reviews the theoretical foundations of Height Psychology, which proposes that researchers not only do research but act on their ideas to make the world a better place. It is posited that researchers should be passionate humanist whose thoughts propel actions and whose actions propel new thoughts, and they should be engaged change agents who work with communities in defining and solving problems rather than being disinterested scientists who are only interested in creating a body of objective knowledge. This approach is likely to fit the worldview of non‐western psychologists engaged in indigenous psychology, and also allow the development of global psychology that is culturally integrated and not excessively biased toward western or experimental psychology.     

Toward community: A third position

This essay addresses the insufficiency of modern science as the solution to the problems of human life. It is a critique of community theory and a constructivist proposal for a synthesis of the individuality and collectivity solutions to the Paradox of the One and the Many—designated as the Third Position. The Third Position is necessary for the postmodern period for there is a need to incorporate the goal of Equality (or Justice) into a paradigm based on Liberty and Fraternity. The Third Position is also called the Just Community. To achieve the development of the new position (paradigm), a location-specific action research center is proposed based on the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory (Kelly, 1970). Two examples of action research are described: aqualitative project to develop community within a parish that has served to advance the theory of the Just Community, and aquantitative project of community-level change-monitoring of social indicators and the use of dynamic modeling as a way to understand and simulate local community processes. The Society for Community Research and Action is urged to take specific actions to explore the development of a Woods Hole community research laboratory.     

The institutionalization of community interventions in Chile: characteristics and contradictions

A critical analysis of the consequences of successive institutionalization of community intervention in Chile is presented. This analysis is based on research of current community interventions in Chile, whose results are compared with Chilean community practice from previous historical periods. Chilean community intervention was formerly practiced out of governmental institutions and universities and was sustained primarily by foreign agencies and ecclesiastical institutions. Nowadays, with the return to democracy, the vast majority of community intervention programs are financed, partially or totally, by means of governmental resources. This institutionalization of community interventions has had consequences worthy of critical analysis: an increase in the number and stability of intervention programs; and also negative consequences for intervention goals, definition of target groups, and intervention practices. Dilemmas, such as assistance vs. promotion or adaptation vs. social change, have arisen. These dilemmas show the contradictions of a Community Psychology, which has left behind the position of institutional marginality to form part of Chilean society's normal psychosocial care. They also show the need for a paradigm shift from a critical view of the social world to a constructionist one.     

Reprint of: Working with religious and spiritual athletes: Ethical considerations for sport psychologists

With a growing number of sport performers revealing their religious and spiritual beliefs, it is becoming increasingly important for sport psychologists to recognize and appreciate the values (and value systems) to which such beliefs are attached. Using the RRICC model (Plante, 2007) as a framework for discussion, and through the lens of cultural praxis, the purpose of this article is to highlight ethical issues for sport psychologists when working with religious and spiritual athletes. The RRICC model addresses the ethical principles of respect, responsibility, integrity, competence, and concern. It is hoped that a discussion of these guidelines will help sport psychologists better navigate the often challenging landscape of working with athletes whose everyday lives and identities are grounded in religious and spiritual association.     

Activity settings as the unit of analysis: A theoretical basis for community intervention and development

Theory, methods, and action develop within context, one of which is the intellectual climate of an era. Community psychology is directly and indirectly interactive with many intellectual currents, such as postmodernism, semiotics, hermeneutics, and dialogism. These ideas are discussed as they impact on community psychology, with an emphasis on the reemergence of meaning as a central condition of psychology and community. Meaning is of key importance to the unifying concept in the transactional theoretical model which is presented. How this model might serve as a conceptual framework for an asset approach to community intervention and development is discussed. Increasingly, it is recognized that the development of theory to guide community research and action is necessary to advance intervention and to realize the potential of community psychology. It is argued that community psychology is positioned by concepts and practice squarely at the point of emerging thought, and can make fuondational contributions to general social science. The next article in this special section illustrates concepts of this model in an early education program and the remaining article illustrates the influence of ecocultural factors.     

Empowerment meets narrative: Listening to stories and creating settings

Comments on and summarizes some of the themes of a special issue on empowerment. Extends empowerment theory with the suggestion that both research and practice would benefit from a narrative approach that links process to practice and attends to the voices of the people of interest. Narrative theory and method tends to open the field to a more inclusive attitude as to what counts as data and to cross-disciplinary insights as well as citizen collaboration. Communal narratives are defined at various levels of analysis, including the community, the organizational, and the cultural. A definition of empowerment that includes a concern with resources calls attention to the fact that communal narratives and personal stories are resources. Implications for personal and social change are suggested.     

Using client feedback in training of future counseling psychologists: An evidence-based and social justice practice

Training in counseling psychology has evolved to emphasize both evidence-based practice (EBP) and social justice, though these two dimensions have often seemed disconnected, or even at odds in the practice of psychotherapy. The Partners for Change Outcome Management System (PCOMS), an EBP that monitors treatment outcomes and the therapeutic alliance across treatment (often called “client feedback”), may offer a means to connect evidence-based and socially just practices. The purpose of this article was to outline how the use of PCOMS in psychotherapy and supervision can serve as a useful training tool that is a form of EBP and also promotes a socially just paradigm in psychotherapy. We also offer an implementation example from a counseling psychology doctoral program to demonstrate how PCOMS can be used with clients in psychotherapy and included within the supervisory process.     

Community as practice: social representations of community and their implications for health promotion

Health promotion researchers and practitioners have increasingly turned to community-based approaches. Although there has been much work around the diverse understandings of the term in areas such as community psychology and sociology, I am concerned with how such understandings relate directly to community health research and practice. From a discursive perspective ‘community’ is seen as a socially constructed representation that is used variously and pragmatically. However, from a wider view, community can be seen as a matter of embodied practice. This paper draws on social representations theory to examine the shifting constructions of ‘community’, the functional use of those understandings in social life, and the practices that suggest that it is important to attend to their use in particular contexts. Accordingly, the paper argues that meanings of community in the health promotion or public health context must be seen as representations used for specific purposes in particular situations. Furthermore, the broader notion of embodied practice in social life has implications for community participation in health promotion. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Developing coherence in community and clinical psychology: the integration of idealism and pragmatism

Illustrations of how ideas from community psychology may be integrated with clinical psychological thinking and practice are described from the perspective of a clinical psychologist working in the NHS. The intentions are to consider socially relevant conceptualizations of the causes of people's well-being and distress, and to develop ways of helping individuals and communities to clarify and address these causes. Incorporating an analysis of social power also necessitates a critical awareness of the limited potency of psychological interventions. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A social cure in the community: A mixed-method exploration of the role of social identity in the experiences and well-being of community volunteers

Cohesive, resilient communities are vital to the well-being of residents. Uncovering the determinants of successful community identities is therefore essential to progressing the community health agenda. Engaging in community participation through volunteering may be one pathway to building local community identity and enhancing residents’ health and well-being, but the group processes connecting them remain unexplored. We conducted two studies investigating these dynamics using the “Social Cure” perspective. First, we analysed 53 in-depth interviews with volunteers, finding that community relationships shaped their experiences and that volunteering influenced their sense of community belonging, support, and well-being. Second, a community survey (N = 619) revealed that volunteering predicts well-being through the serial mediators of community identification and social support. Our article demonstrates the Social Cure processes involved in community-based volunteering, their impact on community identity, support and well-being, and their implications for community health, and the provision and sustainability of community voluntary action and interventions.     

Promoting Inter-Relational Reflexivity with Psychosocial Workers in Community Work: A Case Study from Burundi

We explore the practice of creating reflexive spaces within community work with psychosocial workers living in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A central idea is inter-relational reflexivity—reflexivity within relationships that leads to collective action. Theoretical ideas related to inter-relational reflexivity are examined and a case study of the engagement with the psychosocial workers, which used these ideas, is presented. Among the issues explored are: the importance of staying with the lived experiences of people; the challenge of ensuring that inter-relational thinking is transferred to collective social action; and the methodologies that can be used to establish ongoing psychological and social processes that address the structure of power and promote transformation and healing within traumatised communities.     

Academic on a mission: Run and run and run

Challenges the distinctions we make between research/scholarship and practice. Recognizes and values the complimentarity of teaching, research, practice, and public policy. Tells how I have tried to approach creating opportunities to integrate those activities in my role as a community psychologist in an academic setting. Describes some of the lessons I have learned from my two decades of practice. This article is a very close approximation to my Distinguished Contribution to Practice in Community Psychology award address at APA in Toronto, August 1996. That talk included numerous overheads, which reason demands I omit. I thank Jim Sorenson and George Albee who, each in their own way, showed me that university professors can be passionate about their work and extend their reach beyond the perimeters of the campus. I thank Heather Barton, Krista Hopkins, Jennifer Heigel, and Anne Salassi for being such good ambassadors and for my most meaningful source of professional satisfaction: turning students on to careers as community psychologists and preventionists. I thank the Virginia prevention community for two decades of working together toward a common mission and the College of William and Mary for supporting my life’s work. Finally I thank John Morgan for his friendship and his affirming introduction, State Michaels for her help with the original talk, and Beverly Peterson for always being there. I am deeply honored.     

The Australian Psychology Workforce 3: A national profile of psychologists in salaried employment or in independent private practice

A detailed analysis of the different sectors of the psychology workforce was conducted as part of the National Psychology Workforce Survey: Independent Private Practice (IPP), Employed in Public Sector (EPuS) and Employed in Private Sector (EPrS). A total of 11,897 psychologists responded to the workforce survey, a response rate of 48%. Of these 8,086 were fully registered and currently working in a psychology role. Sectors were compared on a range of practice characteristics and differences were explored using a series of ANOVAs and post‐hoc analyses. Results of analyses revealed qualitative differences between the three sectors. Strategies for maintaining the employed workforce were also collected and are reported to be as much about increasing work satisfaction and support for professional and development opportunities as about salary.     

Divergence between community psychologists in academic and nonacademic settings: A closer look at the implications

The ecological principle of interdependence has been a guiding theme in our research and conceptualization. For the development of community psychology, academic and applied interest and networks must be integrated in ways which value the views and resources of both groups. This is the focus of Kelly's (1984) remarks. The dynamic interplay of ideas, data, and practices is likely to facilitate the collaboration between researchers and setting inhabitants which Trickett (1984) describes as the distinctive quality of community psychology. Common pathways of information exchange, joint responsibility for training future members of the field, and mutually enhancing role relationships are needed. Current channels of communication provide little ease of access or incentives for participation by psychologists in nonacademic settings. It thus becomes the reponsibility of all concerned community psychologists to use their organizational skills to redress this harmful imbalance (Kelly, 1984). For this to occur, however, we must take the initial steps of frankly recognizing differences in our folkways and organizational constraints, while also emphasizing our common values and assets. The largest threat to the field is external constraints from university and clinical service settings on the work that represents community psychology (Elias et al., 1984). If we are dividedor uninformed in the face of these environmental presses, we will never create the adaptive niche that community psychology needs to survive.     

Collaboration and Social Inquiry: Multiple Meanings of a Construct and Its Role in Creating Useful and Valid Knowledge

The concept of collaboration in community research and intervention, although not new, has grown tremendously in importance in the past 20 years. Yet, it is both a contested concept in terms of its intent and a still evolving idea in terms of its meaning and implications. The purpose of this monograph is to begin to "unpack" the collaboration construct in terms of its many meanings, rationales, goals, models, dynamics, and accomplishments. Although models of collaboration are often well articulated there is "partial paradigm acquisition" (E. J. Trickett, 1984) in terms of understanding their behavioral and ethical implications. There is more theology than conclusion. The promise of collaboration, although considerable, is still in need of multiple and varied empirical examples of how collaboration contributes to both the process and goals of community research and intervention, however defined. The monograph closes with a brief overview of what we have learned from reviewing this literature, an articulation of the kinds of questions that need to be addressed, and a series of recommendations for how to increase our understanding of the collaboration construct in community research and intervention.     

Stories of Relative Privilege: Power and Social Change in Feminist Community Psychology

Stories about community work in New Zealand and Scotland are presented to describe and reflect on issues central to feminist community psychology. Organizing a lesbian festival, Ingrid Huygens describes feminist processes used to equalize resources across Maori (indigenous) and Pakeha (white) groups. Heather Hamerton presents her experiences as a researcher using collective memory work to reflect on adolescent experiences related to gender, ethnicity, and class. Sharon Cahill chronicles dilemmas and insights from focus groups about anger with women living in public housing in Scotland. Each story chronicles experiences related to oppression and privilege, and describes the author's emotions and reflections. Individually and collectively, the stories illustrate the potential offered by narrative methods and participatory processes for challenging inequalities and encouraging social justice.     

Community science: bridging the gap between science and practice with community-centered models

A major goal of community science is to improve the quality of life in our communities by improving the quality of the practice of treatment, prevention, health promotion, and education. Community science is an interdisciplinary field, which develops and researches community-centered models that enable communities to use evidence-based interventions more effectively and efficiently. In this article, the gap between science and practice and the need to bridge the gap with new models serve as an entry point and guide to the development of a community science. Therefore, the article describes (1) the prevention science model of bringing science to practice, (2) why this model is necessary but not sufficient for influencing the quality of interventions in our everyday world, (3) the gap between science and practice and the need to integrate prevention science models with community-centered models in order to bridge the gap, and (4) features of community science.     

中国社会转型过程中的心理变化：社会学视角的研究及其对心理学家的启示

社会心理学有着社会学和心理学两种取向。虽然多数时候相对独立发展, 但两者都对现代化带来的社会转型和变迁非常关注。社会学家从社会或社会结构的变化和人的变化两个方面对社会转型进行了大量研究, 前者主要涉及城市(镇)化、社会阶层、社会流动性、家庭结构等, 后者主要涉及中国体验、社会心态、群体心理、组织心理等。总体上, 现有研究显示, 现代社会个体主义上升, 同时许多传统集体主义价值在日渐式微。和心理学取向的研究相比, 社会学取向的研究具有这些特点：倾向于采用本位概念、质性研究方法, 特别关注中观群体心理, 关注政治和政策影响, 更具历史宏观视野等, 这些都是心理学取向的社会心理学家需要学习和借鉴的地方。期待两种取向的社会心理学家在未来的研究中能有更多的合作, 共同促进对转型过程中的中国和中国人的理解。     

The Prevalence and Prevention of Crosstalk: A Multi-Institutional Study

It is a common problem in psychology subject pools for past study participants to inform future participants of key experimental details (also known as crosstalk). Previous research (Edlund, Sagarin, Skowronski, Johnson, & Kutter, 2009) demonstrated that a combined classroom and laboratory treatment could significantly reduce crosstalk. The present investigation tested a laboratory-only treatment for the prevention of crosstalk at five universities, along with institutional-level moderators of crosstalk. Results indicated the presence of crosstalk at all universities and that the laboratory-based treatment was effective in reducing crosstalk. Importantly, crosstalk rates were higher (but successfully neutralized) in research pools with higher research credit requirements. Therefore, this research provides valuable guidance regarding crosstalk prevalence and its minimization by researchers.