Les bases du développement de la psychologie communautaire en Europe

Community psychology was born in the USA during the sixties, in a context of poverty, social reforms and deinstitutionalisation. In Europe, because of government policies (dictatorships in Spain, Portugal…) and the orientation of Psychology Institutes, community psychology developed lately. On the other hand, there has been for a long time experiments of alternative care to the hospitalization which are based on the same principles (the experiment of Basaglia in Italy, the district policy in France…). Since the eighties, there are also much more courses in European universities. Finally, the creation of the European Network Community Psychology (ENCP) in 2005 illustrates the expansion of community psychology in Europe. In this article, we will reexamine the various medical and social policies in Italy, in France, in the United Kingdom, and in the other countries of Europe which supported the establishment of Community Psychology.     

西方社区心理学形成背景与发展历程考略

本文考察了西方社区心理学的形成背景与发展历程,并展望其在中国的应用前景。西方社区心理学的形成受到美国社区心理卫生运动、民权运动的深刻影响。1965年社区心理学诞生后,经过众多学者的努力,已发展成一门以预防问题行为、促进社会能力为核心内容,以多学科交叉、行动研究为鲜明特色的应用心理学新兴领域。目前中国正在推进和谐社会建设。社区既是社会生活的基础,又是社会结构中承上启下的中枢,因而社区心理学在中国具有广阔的发展前景。     

Community Psychology in higher education in Europe: Results of a survey and discussion of the basic competency approach

This report from the Standing Committee on Community Psychology of the European Federation of Psychological Association provides an overview of higher education in Community Psychology (CP) in 14 European countries. Our findings show that 10 countries have some kind of CP teaching in their educational system. Twenty European universities offer a CP‐oriented Master degree, two universities at the Bachelor level and 16 universities also have CP‐oriented Ph.D. programmes. The profiles of the universities focus on two areas: Community psychology in a pure form and a combination of social psychology and community psychology. The other universities vary between clinical, organisational psychology, and a pedagogical focus. Within a certain European emphasis, these universities are analysing and changing the social conditions of community life and mental health. The responding universities failed to report adequately on comprehensive core competences and key elements in CP. To compensate for this deficit, the Standing Committee on Community Psychology proposes to develop a primer of basic CP competences for inclusion in programmes like EuroPsy.     

Mainstream Economics and Sense-Making

This work presents a semiotic approach to the economy, underlining that any economic phenomena is at the same time a communicative act as it is contingent to sense-making.The article discusses this topic by focusing on a specific phenomenon studied by economics: the underground economy. It shows that the conceptualization of the underground economy in terms of sense-making processes offers a thought-provoking perspective for theoretical development. More in general, the discussion proposed makes it clear that in order to deepen our vision of economic phenomena in a more thoughtful and realistic way we need to rethink these phenomena as being reciprocally and circularly embedded in the semiotic flow of life. The economy is within sense-making and it is shaped by it; at the same time sense-making is within the economy, as its semiotic substance.

Community Psychology Is (Thank God) More Than Science

Thinking about Community Psychology primarily as a science may make it harder, rather than easier, to embrace certain aspects of the field to which we are deeply committed, but usually fall outside the conventional meaning of doing science. While community psychologists use (and expand) the tools of science, this is different than saying that Community Psychology is only, or even primarily, a science. The field is just as much social criticism as it is science. In order to further conversation about these matters, seven thoughts about why (thank God) community psychology is more than a science are offered, the most basic of which is that today the greatest danger to freedom is not in the union of church and state, but in the union of science and state.Based on a paper presented at a Symposium, A. Wandersman (Chair), Science and Community Psychology, Held at the 9th Biennial Meeting of the Society for Community Research and Action, June, 2003, Las Vegas, New Mexico.     

Program evaluation in community psychology

American Journal of Community Psychology -     

Personal correlates of contrasting environments: Student satisfactions in high school classrooms

American Journal of Community Psychology -     

On Becoming Scholars and Activists for Disability Rights

In this paper, the authors discussed the nexus between the Americans with Disabilities Act and the founding of the field of Community Psychology. Contributions of the latter and future areas of research are reviewed here in three areas of importance to both fields: Community living and participation, employment, and transition from high school. Community psychology can make potential contributions to advancing research in these three areas. Implications for future research are discussed.     

Understanding the Role of Emotion in Sense-making. A Semiotic Psychoanalytic Oriented Perspective

We propose a model of emotion grounded on Ignacio Matte Blanco’s theory of the unconscious. According to this conceptualization, emotion is a generalized representation of the social context actors are involved in. We discuss how this model can help to better understand the sensemaking processes. For this purpose we present a hierarchical model of sensemaking based on the distinction between significance—the content of the sign—and sense—the psychological value of the act of producing the sign in the given contingence of the social exchange. According to this model, emotion categorization produces the frame of sense regulating the interpretation of the sense of the signs, therefore creating the psychological value of the sensemaking.

Oppression and discrimination among lesbian,gay, bisexual,and Transgendered people and communities: a challenge for community psychology

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) people continue to experience various forms of oppression and discrimination in North America and throughout the world, despite the social, legal, and political advances that have been launched in an attempt to grant LGBT people basic human rights. Even though LGBT people and communities have been actively engaged in community organizing and social action efforts since the early twentieth century, research on LGBT issues has been, for the most part, conspicuously absent within the very field of psychology that is explicitly focused on community research and action–Community Psychology. The psychological and social impact of oppression, rejection, discrimination, harassment, and violence on LGBT people is reviewed, and recent advances in the areas of LGBT health, public policy, and research are detailed. Recent advances within the field of Community Psychology with regard to LGBT research and action are highlighted, and a call to action is offered to integrate the knowledge and skills within LGBT communities with Community Psychology's models of intervention, prevention, and social change in order to build better theory and intervention for LGBT people and communities.     

Commentary on the Future of Community Psychology: Perspective of a Research Community Psychologist

Community psychology is commented upon from the perspective of a community psychologist who was trained in the Community Psychology Program at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Her background and training are reviewed. A brief survey of research on homelessness as a frame for community psychology research is presented. Concluding remarks are provided on the future of research in community psychology.     

Applied behavior analysis at West Virginia University: A brief history

The development of an emphasis on applied behavior analysis in the Department of Psychology at West Virginia University is traced. The emphasis began primarily in the early 1970s, under the leadership of Roger Maley and Jon Krapfl, and has continued to expand and evolve with the participation of numerous behavior analysts and behavior therapists, both inside and outside the department. The development has been facilitated by several factors: establishment of a strong behavioral emphasis in the three Clinical graduate programs; change of the graduate program in Experimental Psychology to a program in basic Behavior Analysis; development of nonclinical applied behavior analysis within the Behavior Analysis program; establishment of a joint graduate program with Educational Psychology; establishment of a Community/Systems graduate program; and organization of numerous conferences. Several factors are described that seem to assure a stable role for behavior analysis in the department: a stable and supportive "culture" within the department; American Psychological Association accreditation of the clinical training; a good reputation both within the university and in psychology; and a broader community of behavior analysts and behavior therapists.     

Community Psychology: Theory and Practice. Orford J. (1992). Wiley,Chichester: pp. vii+292. £18.99 ISBN 0‐471‐93810‐6 (paperback)

The Stirling Community Psychology Class of 1999 consisted of 57 third and fourth year undergraduates who each reviewed the book separately. The above review is the result of content analysis by Rebekah Pratt who trained as a community psychologist at the University of Waikato, New Zealand and is currently working as a research fellow at the Centre for Social Research on Dementia, University of Stirling. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Restructuring the Baccalaureate: A Focus on Time-Shortened Degree Programs in the United States by Robert M. Bersi. The Group as Agent of Change edited by Alfred Jacobs and Wilford Spradlin. Group Counseling and Therapy Techniques in Special Settings edited by Richard E. Hardy and John G. Cull. Correctional Psychology by Robert J. Wicks. Elements of Encounter: A Bodymind Approach by William C. Schutz. Exercises in Personal and Career Development by Barrie Hopson and Patricia Hough. The Communication Contract by Susan B. Goldstein and Luther F. Sies. Schools without Counselors: Guidance Practices for Teachers by William B. Stafford. An Introduction to Community Psychology by Melvin Zax and Gerald A. Specter. Breaking the Bonds of Racism by Paul and Ouida Lindsey. The Human Constraint: The Coming Shortage of Managerial Talent by John B. Miner.     

Forebyggande Arbete I Skolan

Allen G J, Chinsky J M, Lawrence S W, Lockman J E and Selinger H V: Community Psychology and the Schools. Lawrence Erlbaum Ass. Publ., Hillsdale, Hew Jersey, 1976. 205 s.     

Reaching Higher in Community Psychology: Social Problems, Social Settings, and Social Change

Forty years after the founding of community psychology, we have yet to deliver on the full promissory note of our birth, where we were poised to address social problems, social settings, and social change. Despite some success, we are at risk for selling ourselves short, for dying out in the discipline of psychology, and for failing to improve the common good. Given changes in demographics and in the safety net, the problem of entrenched disparities is even more urgent—in perception of the other, in the provision of opportunities for development, and in outcomes. Envisioning and enabling will be critical as we work with unified purpose toward a cumulative science where failure will not be predictable.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the mid-west ECO Conference in Community Psychology held in Saugatuck, Michigan, October 2004.     

Racial reckoning,resistance, and the revolution: A call to community psychology to move forward

This article introduces a special issue of the American Journal of Community Psychology that features racial reckoning, resistance and the revolution in the context of a syndemic, the historical subjugation of communities of Color (COC) to racial hierarchies and the coronavirus (COVID-19). More specifically, this special issue underscores the need for community psychology and other allied disciplines to address this syndemic facing COC. The special issue delivers on the stories of the lived experiences from researchers and community members as it relates to COVID-19 and COC. Twelve articles are illuminated to challenge the field to create social change.     

The 1979 division 27 award for distinguished contributions to community psychology and community mental health: Emory L. Cowen

Summary The metaphor of the paper's title offers a framework for a brief summary. Effective wooing of primary prevention requires that we take seriously, and adhere to, its clear, sensible defining guidelines; systematize, and further develop, its generative base; use that base to guide the formulation of new primary prevention programs; further develop frameworks to promote informed choices of programs derecions from among many attractive possibilities; and be more hard-nosed as program evaluators. That type of courtship should improve our love life with — and perhaps even, science of — primary prevention in mental health. Editor's Note: Emory L. Cowen was honored at the 1979 annual meeting of the American Psychological Association in New York, New York, on September 4, 1979, receiving the Division of Community Psychology Award for Distinguished Contributions to Community Psychology and Community Mental Health. The selection was made by an Awards Committee composed of all the past-Presidents of the Division. Dr. Cowen was introduced by Jack M. Chinsky of the University of Connecticut, and Julian Rappaport of the University of Illinois at Urbana—Champaign.This paper bears some (superficial) resemblance to a talk given at division 27's Distinguished Contribution Award ceremony, during the 87th Annual APA Meetings, New York, N.Y., 9/4/79. This draft is surely lengthier, more convoluted,no more informative, and muchless fun than the spoken version. Conceivably, the main accomplishment of my incessant revisions will prove to be the significant incapacitation of 10 gifted typing fingers attached to the hands of Sharon DeVita — the prime initial victim of my obsessionality. To Sharon, who suffered the indignity and boredom of eternal retypings, my boundless gratitude for her patience, forbearance, and good cheer, well beyond the call of duty.Preparation of this paper was done under support of a grant from the NIMH Experimental and Special Training Branch (MH 14547-02-03), which the author acknowledges with gratitude.     

Taking Stock of the Diversity and Sense of Community Debate

Over the past couple of years, a debate has played out in the pages of the American Journal of Community Psychology concerning the relationship between two of Community Psychology's core values: promoting diversity and promoting a sense of community. This special section is to continue a discussion about diversity and community, both among the debate's initial contributors (Alex Stivala, Greg Townley, and Zachary Neal), as well as among others whose own work has touched on these issues (Anne Brodsky, Richard Florida, Jean Hill, and Roderick Watts). In this essay, I address some broad questions that have emerged through this discussion. First, because much has been written on the relationship between diversity and community, both in community psychology and in other disciplines, what do we know, or at least think we know? Second, since the constructs of diversity and sense of community are complex and multi‐faceted, how can definitions get in the way and how can we avoid talking past one another in this discussion? Finally, looking across the original papers that initiated this discussion, as well as the contributions in this special section, what path(s) forward do we have?