Creating Connection and Reducing Distress: the Effects of Functional Analytic Psychotherapy on Measures of Social Connection across Levels of Analysis

The Psychological Record - Research on functional analytic psychotherapy's (FAP) proposed process of change has focused on the turn-by-turn coding of FAP. In these studies, FAP-consistent...     

The Practice of Community Psychology in Chile

Cet article aborde plusieurs aspects du travail en psychologie des communautés et met l'accent sur l'expérience pratique personnelle dans ce domaine au Chili. Durant la dictature militaire, la psychologie chilienne des communautés dut prendre son essor dans des conditions exceptionnelles, ce qui complexifia le travail et permit, tel un prisme, de faire ressortir plus clairement à la fois les limites, les contradictions, les possibilités et les défis de la pratique de la psychologie des communautés. Le praticien centré sur la communauté plonge dans une réalité politico-sociale structurée de telle façon que la portée et le style de son travail doivent souvent être redéfinis, et il est parfois impossible d'échapper à l'engagement. Tout cela est illustré et discutéà partir d'exemples actuels tirés de la pratique quotidienne de la psychologie des communautés au Chili.
This paper deals with several aspects of community psychology work and focuses on personal practical experience in the field of community psychology in Chile. The exceptional conditions during the military dictatorship, under which Chilean community psychology had to develop, not only made the work more difficult but can also be seen as a "prism", which enables both the limitations and contradictions, as well as the opportunities and challenges, of the practice of community psychology to stand out more clearly. Community-oriented practitioners take part in a social and political reality, which is construed in such a way that the type and scope of their work often has to be defined anew, and it is sometimes not possible to avoid committing oneself. This will be illustrated and discussed using actual examples from everyday practice of community psychology in Chile.     

The case for comparability

We argue that all comparative expressions in natural language obey a principle that we call Comparability: if $x$ and $y$ are at least as $F$ as themselves, then either $x$ is at least as $F$ as $y$ or $y$ is at least as $F$ as $x$. This principle has been widely rejected among philosophers, especially by ethicists, and its falsity has been claimed to have important normative implications. We argue that Comparability is needed to explain the goodness of several patterns of inference that seem manifestly valid, that the purported failures of Comparability would have absurd consequences, and that the influential arguments against Comparability are less compelling than they may have initially seemed.