Family therapists in trauma-response teams: bringing systems thinking into interdisciplinary fieldwork

Attention to the mental health facets of disaster-preparedness and trauma-response teams has increased considerably over the past decade. As family therapists take part in these efforts, they bring with them a worldview that adds valuable contributions to the nature in which fieldwork is conducted and the manners in which interdisciplinary teams function on the ground. In this article, we present how systems thinking sensitizes trauma workers to a variety of clinical presentations and biopsychosocial complexities inherent in this work. We describe common clinical- and practice-related challenges, alongside practical strategies for effectively dealing with these challenges. We draw upon our experiences as family therapists trained in the field of trauma, and our work as field responders, supervisors and team leaders across a variety of local and large-scale disaster events and contexts.     

The Importance of Community Context for Young Women’s Occupational Aspirations

The effects of community context on occupational aspirations are examined in a national sample of young women in high school in the USA in 1979 (n = 2,210). Multilevel statistical models indicate that young women living in counties with a lower divorce rate, a lower percentage of women working, and more people employed in the wholesale and retail industrial sector tended to be less likely to aspire to paid work than young women living in areas with a higher divorce rate, a higher percentage of women working, and fewer people employed in the wholesale and retail industrial sector. Community context does not affect the level of young women’s occupational aspirations as predicted by prior scholarship. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2006 Southern Sociological Society Annual Meetings. The author thanks John Reynolds, Patricia Yancey Martin, Irene Padavic, Robert Kunovich, Jennifer Keene, Mary Guy, and the editor and reviewers at Sex Roles for their helpful comments on previous drafts of this paper.     

Differential Effects of Strategic Planning on Community Change in Two Urban Neighborhood Coalitions

Community coalitions represent a promising approach for addressing the interrelated and multiply- determined issues affecting urban neighborhoods of concentrated poverty. The literature suggests a number of community processes that may affect coalition efforts to change and improve communities. This study uses an interrupted time-series design to examine the effects of a strategic planning intervention on community change in two urban neighborhoods in the Kansas City metropolitan area. Results showed that strategic planning was associated with increased rates of community change in the two urban neighborhood coalitions. Under appropriate conditions, such as the presence of consistent leadership, strategic planning may be a particularly effective mechanism for stimulating community change and addressing locally-determined goals in urban neighborhoods.     

Puja as One Dimension of a Sensitive,Relational Approach to Community Health Care Provision

This article compares two projects designed to train groups of rural Rajasthani women as community health workers. Through ethnographic research conducted during the training periods of each project I highlight stark differences in the management and structural approaches. The successful project recognised the importance of rituals, specifically puja, in the daily lives of participants. Both the NGO management and the trainees performed daily rituals that helped foster a supportive network. Sensitivity combined with a wider insight into the practical realities and constraints facing women in rural Rajasthan contributed to the long-term success of the second project. The first project has folded. I argue a lack of open dialogue and real connection with participants meant the project’s management were unable to adapt /tailor the program to the needs and experiences of the women involved.

The being-with of being-there

In Being and Time, Heidegger affirms that being-with or Mitsein is an essential constitution of Dasein but he does not submit this existential to the same rigorous analyses as other existentials. In this essay, Jean-Luc Nancy points to the different places where Heidegger erased the possibility of thinking an essential with that he himself opened. This erasure is due, according to Nancy, to the subordination of Mitsein to a thinking of the proper and the improper. The polarization of Being-with between an improper face, the Anyone, and a proper one, the people, which is also, as Nancy shows, a polarization between everydayness and historicity, between a being-together in exteriority (indifference and anonymity) and a being-together in interiority (union through destiny), between a solitary dying and the sacrificial death in combat, leaves the essential with unthought. This essay shows not only the tensions that arise out of Heidegger’s own analyses of Mitsein and affect the whole of Being and Time but also underlines in the end a “shortfall in thinking” inherent not only to Heidegger’s work but, as Nancy claims, to our Western tradition, a shortfall which Nancy has attempted to remedy in his Being Singular Plural. A slightly different version has been published under the title “L’être-avec de l’être-là” in Lieu-Dit 19 “Communauté” (Spring 2003). All additions in square brackets are the translators’ unless otherwise indicated. The German words in parentheses are Nancy’s additions. For the translation of citations from Being and Time, we have used the Macquarrie & Robinson’s translation which we have modified only when constrained by Nancy himself. Overall, we have tried to be faithful to the Heideggerian tone of Nancy’s text by using the accepted English translation of the central concepts of Being and Time. When we depart from the accepted translations, it is to remain true to Nancy’s paraphrases, emphases, and displacements. For example, we refrain from using “authentic” and “inauthentic.” Translated by Marie-Eve Morin Department of Philosophy, 4-97 Humanities Centre, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada T6G 2E5 e-mail: mmorin1@ualberta.ca

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Enhancing resilience: families and communities as agents for change

In this article, the Linking Human Systems (LINC) Community Resilience model, a theoretical framework for initiating and sustaining change in communities that have undergone rapid and untimely transition or loss, is presented. The model assumes that individuals, families, and communities are inherently competent and resilient, and that with appropriate support and encouragement, they can access individual and collective strengths that will allow them to transcend their loss. This competence can be nurtured by helping people regain a sense of connectedness with one another; with those who came before them; with their daily patterns, rituals, and stories that impart spiritual meaning; and with tangible resources within their community. Rather than imposing artificial support infrastructures, LINC interventions engage respected community members to act as natural agents for change. These "community links" provide a bridge between outside professionals, families, and communities, particularly in circumstances in which outside intervention may not be welcomed. The article illustrates how LINC interventions successfully have been used in communities around the world.     

Effects of exposure to community violence on school functioning: The mediating role of posttraumatic stress symptoms

This study investigated the association between exposure to community violence (ECV) and school functioning, as well as posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptoms as a potential mediator of the relationship. PTS symptoms are commonly associated with ECV, and are characterized by difficulty regulating emotions and behaviors. Thus, PTS symptomatology may be one mechanism through which community violence impacts school functioning. The community-based sample included 47 low-income African American children (aged 10-13). Results revealed that ECV was inversely related to academic performance and attendance. Symptoms of posttraumatic stress emerged as a mediator of the relation between ECV and academic performance. Results have implications for urban students who face violence in their communities, and emphasize the need for school-based mental health services.     

A Spirituality of the Desert for Education: The Call of Justice Beyond the Individual or Community

This paper argues for an alternative notion of spirituality for education, based on Theo de Boer’s idea of a spirituality of the desert. Rather than depicting an inner, additional region named the spiritual, spirituality here is thought of as a discourse that depicts the everyday world in a particular way. In dialogue with David Purpel’s analysis, the paper argues for a notion of spirituality that is located in an ongoing oscillation between ‘the individual’ and ‘the community.’ This oscillation turns out to be the call of justice. This analysis helps understand classroom dynamics differently, providing a place of critique for current practices.

Social Policies in Uruguay: A View from the Political Dimension of Community Psychology

This paper approaches social policy (SP) from the political perspective considered by Montero (Critical psychology: An introduction, Sage, London, pp 231–244, 1997; Community, Work and Family 1(1):65–78, 1998; Introducción a la Psicología Comunitaria. Desarrollo, conceptos y procesos, Paidos, Buenos Aires, pp 89–114, pp 255–284, 2004; Hacer para transformar. El método en la Psicología Comunitaria, Paidos, Buenos Aires, pp 229–256, 2004) as a paradigmatic dimension of community psychology. The field of SP, the characteristics of certain SPs and the role of SP in the production and reproduction of the subjectivities of those subject to them in Uruguay are described and an analysis given of the challenge posed by going from a compensatory or palliative to a transformative mode of SP. It is proposed that identification of, and understanding and intervention in, psychosocial processes in the field are the keys to maximising the likelihood of SPs assuming a transformative character. Psychosocial aspects and participatory processes implicit in the relationship between the State and civil society are discussed. Finally, some orientations for community psychological intervention in this field of action are proposed.     

Globalization, Neo-Liberalism and Community Psychology

A longitudinal analysis (1984–2005) of media language in Norway is presented, demonstrating how the current globalized capitalist market ideology is now permeating this long-established Scandinavian welfare state. This ideological shift carries powerful implications for community psychology, as traditional welfare state values of equal services based on a universalistic principle are set aside, and social and material inequalities are increasingly accepted. The methodology developed in the present study may serve as a “barometer of community changes”, to borrow a metaphor used by Sarason (2000).