Community Psychology: what it is and how it transforms societies

Psychology is a discipline as diverse as it is ancient and has helped us generate many ways of understanding both our individual behavior and interpersonal relationships.

One of the branches of psychology that is especially oriented towards producing social changes and transformations from the perspective of the actors themselves is community psychology. In this article we will explain what it is, where it comes from, what are the main objectives and the field of action of this branch of psychology.

• Related article: "What is social psychology?"

What is Community Psychology?

Community psychology, or community social psychology, is a theory and methodology that arises in the American countries, both in the north, as well as in the center and the south, and its main objective is to produce transformations in the communities seeking the strengthening and participation of social actors in their own environments.

Where does it come from?

It is an interdisciplinary theory because it includes an organized set of ideas and knowledge that come not only from psychology, but other sciences, especially human and social, such as anthropology, sociology or philosophy.

It is also nourished by the political activity of transformative disciplinary movements, such as antipsychiatry or community mental health, which emerged in Italy and the United States in the middle of the 20th century and who made an indication or complaint about some limitations of the traditional ways of doing psychology.

Similarly has important influences of revolutionary Latin American thought, such as the militant sociology promoted by the Colombian O. Fals Borda, or the popular education model of the Brazilian Paulo Freire.

As a theory, community social psychology is in charge of studying psychosocial factors, that is, both psychological and psychological elements. as social, specifically involved in the control and power that people exercise over ourselves and over our environments.

For this reason, community psychology is closely related to the concepts of power, self-management and empowerment, and is part of a current of critical transformation that assumes that society is a collective construction of the people that make it up, in turn influenced by that construction, susceptible to criticism and changes (Montero, 2012).

• You may be interested in: "The 4 differences between Psychology and Sociology"

From the theory to the practice

In other words, community psychology is also a methodology: from its theoretical approaches we can develop intervention strategies that promote people to be agents of change in our own environments and active agents in detecting our needs and solving our problems.

This is where we can see a difference or even a distance from traditional social and clinical psychology: it is not the intervener, the technician, the institutions state, religious, political or private, but the social agents of the community itself who recognize themselves as the protagonists, specialists and producers of the change.

Due to the above, community psychology is also considered as a psychology project for development; a development that goes beyond the individual dimension, since its objective is not only to modify the psychology of people, but also to impact the habitat and individual-group relationships to achieve qualitative changes both in that habitat and in the relationships.

Key concepts: empowerment, community...

Community social psychology considers that the space where a transformative relationship is needed and can be established is the one in which people carry out their daily lives, that is, the community.

Since the community is the space where social transformations can take place, it is the actors that make up that community who would have to manage and produce these transformations: they are the ones who experience day by day both the conflicts and the agreements.

But this often does not happen, rather the responsibility and the ability to generate solutions are often delegated to people or groups that are external to communities, generally institutions or agents that are considered experts.

What community psychology proposes is that the approach of those who consider themselves experts or of institutions Although it is necessary at first, it cannot remain in the community as the sole agent of change, but rather that it is about promoting that it is the people of the community who strengthen self-management and promote transformation. In other words, the intervener would have to promote his own withdrawal from the community, as long as it is external.

Thus, the purpose is to develop, promote and maintain control, power, active participation and decision-making of the people who make up a community (Montero, 1982). From this approach arises the concept of strengthening or empowerment, a word that later became "empowerment" because the Anglo-Saxon concept "empowerment" was transferred.

The problem with the latter is that it literally means "endowment of power", which leads us to mistakenly think that a The psychologist or community psychologist is the one who "has the power", and is in charge of "distributing" that power to the people who do not have it. have.

Empowerment or empowerment? power and participation

Actually, the community psychology proposal is closer to the strengthening process, where power is not a gift or a donation, but an achievement. that arises from the reflection, awareness and action of people according to their own interests, that is, power and empowerment are collective processes.

This means that research in community social psychology is participatory, and the development and implementation of intervention projects take into account many (psychosocial) factors that go beyond the psychology or personality of individuals.

Some examples of the elements to take into account are: geographic location, demographics, sociocultural characteristics, the history of the community, daily activities, education, the characteristics of the institutions, the health and disease processes, resources, problems and needs, which are detected through diagnoses participatory.

Bibliographic references:

• Montenegro, M., Rodríguez, A. & Pujol, J. (2014). Community Social Psychology in the face of changes in contemporary society: From the reification of the common to the articulation of differences. Psychoperspectives, 13(2): 32-43.
• Montero, M. (2012). Theory and practice of community psychology. The tension between community and society. Paidos: Buenos Aires.
• Mori, M.P. (2008). A methodological proposal for community intervention. Liberabit, 14(14): 81-90.
• Montero, M. (1984). Community psychology: origins, principles and theoretical foundations. Latin American Journal of Psychology [Online] Retrieved April 6, 2018. Available in http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa? id=80516303 ISSN 0120-0534.