Community Psychology

Fifth Edition

John Moritsugu, Elizabeth Vera, Frank Y Wong, Karen Grover Duffy

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317349938
• Edition: 5
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Social Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Community Psychology, 5/e focuses on the prevention of problems, the promotion of well-being, empowerment of members within a community, the appreciation of diversity, and an ecological model for the understanding of human behavior. Attention is paid to both "classic" early writings and the most recent journal articles and reviews by today's practitioners and researchers. Historical and alternative methods of effecting social change are explored in this book, with the overall theme that the environment is as important as the individual in it. This text is available in a variety of formats – digital and print.

Learning Goals

Upon completing this book, readers will be able to:

• Understand the historical and contemporary principles of community psychology.
• Apply theory and research to social services, mental health, health, legal, and public health systems

1

Introduction: Historical Background

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Social Movements

Swampscott

WHAT IS COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY?

FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES

A Respect for Diversity

The Importance of Context and Environment

Empowerment

The Ecological Perspective/Multiple Levels of Intervention

■ CASE IN POINT 1.1 Clinical Psychology, Community Psychology: What’s the Difference?

OTHER CENTRAL CONCEPTS

Prevention Rather Than Therapy

■ CASE IN POINT 1.2 Does Primary Prevention Work?

Social Justice

Emphasis on Strengths and Competencies

Social Change and Action Research

Interdisciplinary Perspectives

■ CASE IN POINT 1.3 Social Psychology, Community Psychology, and Homelessness

■ CASE IN POINT 1.4 The Importance of Place

A Psychological Sense of Community

Training in Community Psychology

PLAN OF THE TEXT

SUMMARY

Until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

—Martin Luther King, quoting Amos 5:24

Be the change that you wish to see in the world.

—M. Gandhi

My dog Zeke is a big, friendly Lab–golden retriever–Malamute mix. Weighing in at a little over 100 pounds, he can be intimidating when you first see him. Those who come to know him find a puppy-like enthusiasm and an eagerness to please those he knows.

One day, Zeke got out of the backyard. He scared off the mail delivery person and roamed the streets around our home for an afternoon. On returning home and checking our phone messages, we found that we had received a call from one of our neighbors. They had found Zeke about a block away and got him back to their house. There he stayed until we came to retrieve him. We thanked the neighbor, who had seen Zeke walking with us every day for years. The neighbor, my wife, and I had stopped and talked many times. During those talks, Zeke had loved receiving some extra attention. Little did we know all this would lead to Zeke’s rescue on the day he left home.

As an example of community psychology, we wanted to start with something to which we all could relate. Community psychology is about everyday events that happen in all of our lives. It is about the relationships we have with those around us, and how those relationships can help in times of trouble and can enhance our lives in so many other ways. It is also about understanding that our lives include what is around us, both literally and figuratively.

But community psychology is more than a way to comprehend this world. Community psychology is also about action to change it in positive ways. The next story addresses this action component.

We start with two young women named Rebecca and Trisha, both freshmen at a large university. The two women went to the same high school, made similar grades in their classes, and stayed out of trouble. On entering college, Rebecca attended a pre–freshman semester educational program on alcohol and drug abuse, which introduced her to a small group of students who were also entering school. They met an upperclassman mentor, who helped them with the mysteries of a new school and continued to meet with them over the semester to answer any other questions. Trisha did not receive an invitation and so did not go to this program. Because it was a large school, the two did not have many opportunities to meet during the academic year. At the end of their first year, Rebecca and Trisha ran into each other and compared stories about their classes and their life. As it turns out, Rebecca had a good time and for the most part stayed out of trouble and made good grades. Trisha, on the other hand, had problems with her drinking buddies and found that classes were unexpectedly demanding. Her grades were lower than Rebecca’s even though she had taken a similar set of freshman classes. Was the pre-freshman program that Rebecca took helpful? What did it suggest for future work on drug and alcohol use on campuses? A community psychologist would argue that the difference in experiences was not about the ‘character’ of the two women, but about how well they were prepared for the demands of freshman life and what supports they had during their year. And what were those preparations and supports that seemed to bring better navigation of the first year in college?

By the end of this chapter, you will be aware of many of the principles by which the two stories might be better understood. By the end of the text, you will be familiar with the concepts and the research related to these and other community psychology topics and how they may be applied to a variety of systems within the community. These topics range from neighborliness to the concerns and crises that we face in each of our life transitions. The skills, knowledge, and support that we are provided by our social networks and the systems and contexts in which these all happen are important to our navigating our life. A community psychology provides direction in how to build a better sense of community, how to contend with stresses in our life, and how to partner with those in search of a better community. The interventions are usually alternatives to the traditional, individual-person, problem-focused methods that are typically thought of when people talk about psychology. And the target of these interventions may be at the systems or policy level as well as at the personal. But first let us start with what Kelly (2006) would term an ‘ecological’ understanding of our topic—that is, one that takes into account both the history and the multiple interacting events that help to determine the direction of a community.

We first look at the historical developments leading up to the conception of community psychology. We then see a definition of community psychology, the fundamental principles identified with the field, and other central concepts. We learn of a variety of programs in community psychology. And finally, a cognitive map for the rest of the text is provided. But first, back to the past.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Shakespeare wrote, ‘What is past is prologue.’ Why gain a historical perspective? Because the past provides the beginning to the present and defines meanings in the present. Think of when someone says ‘Hi’ to you. If there is a history of friendship, you react to this act of friendship positively. If you have no history of friendship, then you wonder what this gesture means and might react with more suspicion. In a similar way, knowing something of people’s developmental and familial backgrounds tells us something about what they are like and what moves them in the present. The history of social and mental health movements provides insight into the state of psychology. These details provide us with information on the spirit of the times (zeitgeist) and the spirit of the place (ortgeist) that brought forth a community psychology ‘perspective’ (Rappaport, 1977) and ‘orientation’ (Heller & Monahan, 1977).

These historical considerations have been a part of community psychology definitions ever since such definitions began to be offered (Cowen, 1973; Heller & Monahan, 1977; Rappaport, 1977). They also can be found in the most recent text descriptions (Kloos et al., 2011; Nelson & Prilleltensky, 2010). A community psychology that values the importance of understanding ‘context’ would appreciate the need for historical background in all things (Trickett, 2009). This understanding will help explain why things are the way they are, and what forces are at work to keep them that way or to change them. We also gain clues on how change has occurred and how change can be facilitated.

So what is the story? We will divide it into a story of mental health treatment in the United States and a story of the social movements leading up to the founding of the U.S. community psychology field.

In colonial times, the United States was not without social problems. However, given the close-knit, agrarian communities that existed in those times, needy individuals were usually cared for without special places to house them (Rappaport, 1977). As cities grew and became industrialized, people who were mentally ill, indigent, and otherwise powerless were more and more likely to be institutionalized. These early institutions were often dank, crowded places where treatment ranged from restraint to cruel punishment.

In the 1700s France, Philip Pinel initiated reforms in mental institutions, removing the restraints placed on asylum inmates. Reforms in America have been attributed to Dorothea Dix in the late 1800s. Her career in nursing and education eventually led her to accept an invitation to teach women in jails. She noted that the conditions were abysmal and many of the women were, in fact, mentally ill. Despite her efforts at reform, mental institutions, especially public ones, continued in a warehouse mentality with respect to their charges. These institutions grew as the lower class, the powerless, and less privileged members of society were conveniently swept into them (Rappaport, 1977). Waves of early immigrants entering the United States were often mistakenly diagnosed as mentally incompetent and placed in the overpopulated mental ‘hospitals.’

In the late 1800s, Sigmund Freud developed an interest in mental illness and its treatment. You may already be familiar with the method of therapy he devised, called psychoanalysis. Freud’s basic premise was that emotional disturbance was due to intrapsychic forces within the individual caused by past experiences. These disturbances could be treated by individual therapy and by attention to the unconscious. Freud gave us a legacy of intervention aimed at the individual (rather than the societal) level. Likewise, he conferred on the profession the strong tendency to divest individuals of the power to heal themselves; the physician, or expert, knew more about psychic healing than did the patient. Freud also oriented professional healers to examine an individual’s past rather than current circumstances as the cause of disturbance, and to view anxiety and underlying disturbance as endemic to everyday life. Freud certainly concentrated on an individual’s weaknesses rather than strengths. This perspective dominated American psychiatry well into the 20th century. Variations of this approach persist to the present day.

In 1946, Congress passed the National Mental Health Act. This gave the U.S. Public Health Service broad authority to combat mental illness and promote mental health. Psychology had proved useful in dealing with mental illness in World War II. After the war, recognition of the potential contributions of a clinical psychology gave impetus to further support for its development. In 1949, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) was established. This organization made available significant federal funding for research and training in mental health issues (Pickren, 2005; Schneider, 2005).

At the time, clinical psychologists were battling with psychiatrists to expand their domain from testing, which had been their primary thrust, to psychotherapy (Walsh, 1987). Today, clinical psychology is the field within psychology that deals with the diagnosis, measurement, and treatment of mental illness. It differs from psychiatry in that psychiatrists have a medical degree. Clinical psychologists hold doctorates in psychology. These are either a PhD, which is considered a research degree, or a PsyD, which is a ‘practitioner–scholar’ degree focused on assessment and psychological interventions. (Today, the practicing ‘psychologist,’ who does therapy, includes a range of specialties. For example, counseling psychologists, who also hold PhD or PsyD degrees, have traditionally focused on issues of personal adjustment related to normal life development. They too are found among the professional practitioners of psychology.) The struggle between the fields of psychiatry and psychology continues today, as some psychologists seek the right to prescribe medications and obtain practice privileges at the hospitals that do not already recognize them (Sammons, Gorny, Zinner, & Allen, 2000). New models of ‘integrated care’ have been growing, where physicians and psychologists work together at the same ‘primary care’ site (McGrath & Sammons, 2011)...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Chapter 1 Introduction: Historical Background
• Chapter 2 Scientific Research Methods
• Chapter 3 Stress and Resilience
• Chapter 4 The Importance of Social Change
• Chapter 5 Community Intervention Strategies
• Chapter 6 The Mental Health System
• Chapter 7 Social and Human Services in the Community
• Chapter 8 Schools, Children, and the Community
• Chapter 9 Law, Crime, and the Community
• Chapter 10 The Healthcare System
• Chapter 11 Community Health and Preventive Medicine
• Chapter 12 Community/Organizational Psychology
• Chapter 13 The Future of Community Psychology
• Bibliography
• Name Index
• Subject Index