Parallel lives: Community psychology in Latin America and the United States

Comparing the history of community psychology as it developed in the U.S. during the 1960s with the community psychology that developed 10 years later in Latin America, one is reminded of the title of Plutarch’s masterpice,Parallel Lives. Although there was very little contact or communication between the first community psychologists in these regions, very similar principles and orientations evolved. These similarities are particularly striking given the many ways in which the U.S. and Latin American contexts and histories differ. Since most readers are expected to be familiar with the history of community psychology as it developed in the U.S., this paper focuses primarily on the development of community psychology in Latin America in order to highlight areas of convergence as well as divergence from the U.S. experience. This paper is based on an address presented at the Fourth Biennial Conference, Society for Community Research and Action, Division 27 of the American Psychological Association, William and Mary College, Williamsburg, Virginia, 1993. The author acknowledges the valuable help received from J. R. Newbrough and from the referees in the revision of this paper.     

Interfaith Dialogue in Lebanon: Between a Power Balancing Act and Theological Encounters

This essay explores trends and directions of interfaith dialogue in Lebanon with a special focus on developments since the Ta'if Agreement (1989) signed at the end of the civil war. While viewing the encounters of interfaith dialogue in Lebanon against the background of political and social developments, the particular focus of this study is the ventures and potential of “inter-theological dialogue.” In particular, it explores the new initiatives whose focus is on theological and spiritual dialogue, since they seem to have been virtually ignored by recent studies in the field, even though inter-theological discussions have constituted an important part of inter-religious dialogue in Lebanon. The article proposes that theological dialogue in Lebanon is necessary in order to reach true ta?āyush (living together), particularly because politics and religion are intricately intertwined. Focusing on two initiatives within the past 15 years, it shows how they strive to make theological discourse – sometimes a merely intellectual exercise – relevant for society.     

Spirituality,Culture and Mental Health: Prospects and Risks for Contemporary Psychology of Religion

This paper asks whether: (1) psychology of religion is doing what it is supposed to do, (2) the contemporary psychological attention to religion and spirituality is perhaps of a transgressive nature, and (3) conceptualizations of spirituality in psychological publications are biased. It makes a plea for phenomenologically well-informed research on real forms of religion and spirituality, from a perspective that is as broad as psychology at present has become, with due regard for both the cultural make-up of the phenomena and the unavoidable limits of psychologists' professional competence.     

Teaching Community Psychology into Obscurity: A Reflection on Community Psychology in South Africa

The terms “community” and “community psychology” need to be examined within the context of human diversity in order to understand the apparent marginalisation of community psychology in South Africa. Community psychology might be marginalized as the term “community” tends to be associated with black, poor individuals. Current teaching practices in community psychology in South Africa may unwittingly reinforce these stereotypes by having predominantly junior, black and female staff teach community psychology, by generally introducing community psychology at post-graduate level only, and by making community psychology courses predominantly elective. These common teaching practices might contribute to producing raced, gendered and classed student perceptions of community psychology which would devalue psychological activity in communities as less important than individual psychotherapeutic practice in middle class communities. South African psychology would be better able adequately prepare psychologists for public mental health service with a more thoughtful infusion of community psychology teaching into most graduate programmes. Some of the ways in which our teaching can challenge our own and others' views about community psychology in local and international perspectives are discussed.     

Spirituality in Older Adults: A Cross-Cultural and Interfaith Perspective

The definition of spirituality poses a variety of problems for the development of theory and research, as well as practical problems for persons interested in promoting the spiritual well-being of older adults. Although any definition of spirituality is problematic, a definition is proposed that comes out of the writer's clinical experience and is relevant to his understanding of the aging process in different cultural and religious contexts. Two case studies are presented to illustrate the relevance of the definition to the experience of older persons from different cultural and religious backgrounds. Reflections on the case studies suggest ways that an appropriately trained advocate might have helped the persons in these illustrations make changes in their situations that might have improved the quality of their lives. Material from the case studies is also used to clarify differences among terms such as spirituality, religion, religiosity, and piety. The paper proposes to be a contribution to a theoretical foundation for studying and working with spirituality in older adults.     

Obama's Interfaith Service Challenge: A Call for a New Theology of Service in American Higher Education

Abstract : President Obama's recent Interfaith Service Challenge issued to colleges and universities in the United States encourages schools to commit to year‐long interfaith service projects that engage constituencies across campus, across faith traditions, and across the wider local community. While they were included in pre‐challenge planning, university chaplains and religious life staff were omitted from the list of partners. This omission challenges college chaplains and campus ministers to articulate a theology of interfaith service that represents their enduring priorities to engagement across faith lines and in service to others. For Christians, such a theology could be based on the three key principles of imago dei, theologia crucis, and faith active in love.     

Culture and Community Psychology: Toward a Renewed and Reimagined Vision

Interest is growing in community psychology to look more closely at culture. Culture has resided in community psychology in its emphasis on context, ecology, and diversity, however we believe that the field will benefit from a more explicit focus on culture. We suggest a cultural approach that values the community's points of view and an understanding of shared and divergent meanings, goals, and norms within a theory of empowerment. Furthermore, we posit the importance of pluralistic, multi-method programs of research and action encompassing both idiographic and nomothetic approaches, and critical reflexivity of our roles and agendas. Culture can be further incorporated into all the branches and fibers of community psychology.     

Holistic Psychology: A Brief Primer

This article explicates the foundations, essential themes and healing principles of holistic psychology; an approach which provides a corrective for such trends in modern scientific psychology as disciplinary perspectives, the overemphasis on the economics and politics of professionalism. Holistic psychology emphasizes spiritual healing, multi-cultural counseling, community and ecological interventions. Its core pillars of practice and care stem from the spiritual and wisdom traditions widely applicable to combating illness, injustice, violence, materialism, and technocratic influences so prevalent in contemporary society. As a breath and/or spirit based healing practice, holistic psychology provides a foundational exercise for personal, social and cosmic transformation.     

组织心理学研究的情境化及多层次理论

由于组织具有明确的目标和特定的任务, 组织心理与一般情境中人的心理有所区别。由于组织情境下的心理与行为受到个体、群体、组织甚至社会几个层次上的多种因素的影响, 组织心理研究者所建立理论要揭示这些情境变量与所研究的现象之间的联系。本文首先介绍了近年来组织研究中的情境化趋势, 举例说明情境化对于理论发展的贡献。随后, 本文阐述了组织心理学研究中的理论层次问题, 强调界定构念和理论层次的必要性, 并说明界定理论层次背后的逻辑。文章以群体层次的研究为例, 说明形成群体层次构念的方法以及测量群体层次构念时需要注意的问题。鉴于组织中个体层次的因变量会受到个体和更高层次变量的共同影响, 文章在最后部分介绍了组织心理学研究中的多层次理论。本文以近年来发表的组织心理学研究报告为例, 说明研究的情境化以及建立多层次理论的方法。     

Multilevel Investigation into the Community Context of Child Maltreatment

Official rates of child maltreatment vary considerably from community to community. Extensive research on the role of the community context in maltreatment suggests that the neighborhood in which families live could impact their maltreatment behavior. However, the vast majority of existing studies and literature reviews on the topic have not used statistical methods to appropriately control for the impact of these variables at the individual level. This literature review approaches the question of whether the community context affects maltreatment behavior above and beyond the individual-level variables by critiquing the studies that have successfully measured maltreatment risks at both the individual and community level using multilevel modeling.     

Toward a Critical Community Psychological Perspective on Unemployment and Mental Health Research

Psychological research has established that unemployment causes widespread psychological distress and ill health in communities but, arguably, little of this research is truly community psychological. In this paper we sketch out a critical community psychological perspective and use it to contribute to understanding of the role of psychosocial aspects of income in the experience and mental health of employed and unemployed members of low-income families in a severely deprived community context; to the development of innovative participatory methodology, and to promote the interests of impoverished unemployed people through the research process as well as through the research outcome.     

Studying the specificity of spirituality: lessons from the psychology of religion

Psychological research on spirituality need not start from scratch: the psychology of religion provides substantial knowledge and experience that can be drawn on when psychologists want to do research on spirituality. Spirituality, while certainly not identical with religion or religiosity, is a human phenomenon to which many methodological insights from the study of religion may be applied, although it is also a domain where many mistakes from the history of the psychology of religion are likely to be repeated. After presenting some thoughts on the conceptualization of spirituality, and reflecting on the type of psychology required to do research on spirituality, the paper points out some hidden agenda's in the psychologies of religion and spirituality. Focusing on and keeping in mind the specificity of spiritual conduct, the paper discusses a number of practical aspects of empirical research on spirituality.     

A History of Women and Feminist Perspectives in Community Psychology

Using an historical framework, we document and assess efforts to include women, women's issues, and feminism in community psychology and in the Society for Community Research and Action (SCRA). Initiatives of the SCRA Task Force/Committee on Women are traced from its inception to present. We also chronicle the dilemmas and difficulties of moving toward a feminist community psychology. The history is divided into five phases. Each phase is described in terms of women's involvement in the field and efforts to integrate feminist content into research and practice of the field. Reflections on the qualities of contexts that have both supported and inhibited inclusion are identified. We look to this history to try to understand the observation that while women have been increasingly visible in leadership roles and women's professional development has been encouraged, less progress has been made toward building a feminist community psychology.     

Encounters at the Religious Edge: Variation in Religious Expression Across Interfaith Advocacy and Social Movement Settings

In a time of increasing religious diversity, interfaith political coalitions have become important settings for interreligious interaction, but little research has explored the types of religious expression that are generated therein. Prevailing theories in the sociology of religion indicate that interaction with religious others results in dilution of traditional religious commitments or production of stronger boundaries. But emerging perspectives in cultural sociology shift attention from individual religious commitments to the ways in which settings shape different styles of religious expression. Insights about edge spaces drawn from urban theory suggest that religiously diverse settings can be generative of new types of religious practices. We apply these insights to the study of interfaith activism by drawing on interviews and ethnographic fieldwork with religious advocacy professionals and activists working in interfaith coalitions. Conceptualizing the sites of these interfaith encounters as edge spaces, we analyze variation in the types of religious expression that occur in interfaith settings. We find that both aggregative and integrative practices are produced, but these vary depending on the goals and structure of the setting, as well as participants’ accountability to outside religious gatekeepers.     

Religious Bias Among Religiously Conscious Black Christians in the United States

Research with White participants has demonstrated religious intergroup bias; however, religious identity may be different for Black Americans. Only religiously conscious Black Christians demonstrated a preference for Christian targets over Muslim and Atheist targets. Future research should consider what factors result in a person becoming conscious of other's religion.     

Some contributions of a psychological approach to the study of the sacred

ABSTRACT

This paper examines some of the contributions psychology is making to the study of the sacred and its role in human functioning. The focus here is not on the ontological reality of the sacred, but rather perceptions of the sacred. We suggest that psychological theory and research on this topic offers: a clarification of the meaning of the sacred; new knowledge about sanctification – the process through which people come to perceive the sacred in daily life; a response to criticisms about the scientific study of the sacred; a sharper perspective on the meanings of religion and spirituality; a method for measuring sanctification; knowledge about the ways perceptions of the sacred predict important aspects of human behavior, and; an understanding of the sacred as a product of psychological, social, institutional, cultural, and situational forces. We conclude that the sacred represents a vital phenomenon of interest for religious and spiritual study.     

Pride in our community: Reflecting on LGBTQ publications in the American Journal of Community Psychology

In this Virtual Special Issue (VSI), we curate and discuss a set of 28 articles previously published in the American Journal of Community Psychology (AJCP) focused on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) communities. The purpose of this VSI is to bring visibility to this body of scholarship in AJCP and to reflect on how the strengths of our field have been used throughout this work in pursuit of supporting LGBTQ wellbeing. In this VSI, we first discuss articles that help to set the historical background for publications in AJCP. We then discuss papers under the broad themes of HIV/AIDS, identities within ecological context, and social activism among LGBTQ communities. We then reflect on opportunities for our field to further leverage our strengths in contributing to LGBTQ scholarship. Overall, this VSI celebrates the contributions to LGBTQ research already present in AJCP, and we hope inspires future contributions to the pages of AJCP and beyond.