Isaac Prilleltensky

Values, assumptions, and practices: assessing the moral implications of psychological discourse and action.

Despite an increased awareness concerning the role of values in psychology, psychologists lack clear guidelines to appraise the moral implications of their work. To address this discrepancy, the author proposes a framework for examining the moral dimensions of psychological discourse and practice. The framework contains 3 central elements: values, assumptions, and practices. These components may be used to articulate and to challenge the ethical, social, and political implications of theories and practices. To illustrate its applicability, the framework is used to evaluate the moral propositions of traditional, empowering, postmodern, and emancipatory communitarian approaches. The author concludes with a vision for addressing the shortcomings of predominant models by proposing for psychology an emancipatory communitarian approach that promotes the emancipation of vulnerable individuals and that fosters a balance among the values of self-determination, caring and compassion, collaboration and democratic participation, human diversity, and distributive justice.

Value-based praxis in community psychology: Moving toward social justice and social action

The purpose of this paper is to articulate a rationale for value-based praxis in community psychology. Although values need to promote personal, collective, and relational wellness at the same time, it is argued that community psychologists pay more attention to personal and relational wellness than to collective wellness. In order to address this imbalance it is important to promote the value of social justice. While praxis requires that we engage in a cycle of reflection, research, and social action, community psychologists devote more resources to the first two phases of praxis than to the last one. This paper offers a framework for deciding what values and what praxis considerations we should attend to and how we may advance social justice and social action in community psychology.

Cultural diversity and mental health. Towards integrative practice.

Adopting an integrative approach to mental health is especially important when working with people from diverse cultural backgrounds. In order to render culturally sensitive practice, we need to be immersed in the philosophical, contextual, and experiential considerations of the cultural group with whom we work. Comprehensive assessment and intervention involves bridging disciplines to gain a more holistic appreciation for the groups situation and experience. Thus, we have taken a transdisciplinary approach (a) to provide a framework for understanding and improving mental health in the context of cultural diversity and (b) to promote legitimate practice, or the unity of reflection, research, and action, in mental health in different cultures. We provide an example of how we use this framework in our work with the Portuguese immigrant community. The framework is not only limited to assessing the needs of individuals but draws on anthropology, philosophy, political science, and religious studies to understand the social, cultural, moral, and religious domains. In addition, community psychologists and social activists provide models of how to intervene at community or societal levels. The unique contribution of the integrative practice framework is that merges considerations that are typically studied in isolation. Needs, norms, context, values, and social change are not always studied in an integrative fashion. Thus, the article offers a way of considering seemingly disparate but highly complementary practice deliberations.

Wellness as Fairness

I argue that distinct conditions of justice lead to diverse wellness outcomes through a series of psychosocial processes. Optimal conditions of justice, suboptimal conditions of justice, vulnerable conditions of injustice, and persisting conditions of injustice lead to thriving, coping, confronting, and suffering, respectively. The processes that mediate between optimal conditions of justice and thriving include the promotion of responsive conditions, the prevention of threats, individual pursuit, and avoidance of comparisons. The mechanisms that mediate between suboptimal conditions of justice and coping include resilience, adaptation, compensation, and downward comparisons. Critical experiences, critical consciousness, critical action, and righteous comparisons mediate between vulnerable conditions of injustice and confrontation with the system. Oppression, internalization, helplessness, and upward comparisons mediate between persisting conditions of injustice and suffering. These psychosocial processes operate within and across personal, interpersonal, organizational and community contexts. Different types of justice are hypothesized to influence well-being within each context. Intrapersonal injustice operates at the personal level, whereas distributive, procedural, relational, and developmental justice impact interpersonal well-being. At the organizational level, distributive, procedural, relational and informational justice influence well-being. Finally, at the community level, distributive, procedural, retributive, and cultural justice support community wellness. Data from a variety of sources support the suggested connections between justice and well-being.

Understanding, Resisting, and Overcoming Oppression: Toward Psychopolitical Validity

My first objective in this paper is to synthesize, synoptically, the literature on oppression and liberation with the contributions to this special issue. To fulfil this aim I introduce a framework for understanding, resisting, and overcoming oppression. The framework consists of psychopolitical well-being; experiences, consequences, and sources of oppression; and actions toward liberation. Each of these components is subdivided into 3 domains of oppression and well-being: collective, relational, and personal. Experiences of suffering as well as resistance and agency are part of the framework. My second objective is to offer ways of closing the gap between research and action on oppression and liberation. To do so I suggest 2 types of psychopolitical validity: epistemic and transformative.

Polities Change, Oppression Remains: on the Psychology and Politics of Oppression

While both postindustrial and emerging states face economic, cultural, and political changes, the constant of oppression remains. Economically and culturally marginalized groups continue to endure untold degrees of suffering. From a moral point of view, it is imperative that social scientists attend to the needs of the oppressed This paper examines the dynamics of oppression in postindustrial and emerging states from both a psychological and political perspective. The reality of oppression may be understood from various levels of analysis, from the macrolevel of global economic and political structures, to the microlevel of internalized psychological images of inferiority. A comprehensive analysis of oppression will emerge only from an interdisciplinary approach that integrates the political with the psychological. Otherwise, efforts to reduce conditions of oppression will be inhibited by limited perspectives that neglect either the internal or external domains. We explore some of the psychological mechanisms accounting for oppression, such as learned helplessness, internalization of hegemonic self-rejecting views, and obedience to authority. Some of the political mechanisms accounting for oppression in emerging countries include the oppressive structure of international financial systems and internal colonization. We conclude by outlining the process of conscientization necessary to overcome conditions of oppression at all levels of analysis.

Building value-based partnerships: Toward solidarity with oppressed groups

We propose a value-based conceptualization of partnership, defining partnership as relationships between community psychologists, oppressed groups, and other stakeholders, which strive to achieve key community psychology values (caring, compassion, community, health, self-determination, participation, power-sharing, human diversity, and social justice). These values guide partnership work related to the development of services or supports, coalitions and social action, and community research and program evaluation. We prescribe guidelines for building such partnerships and conclude by considering some of the challenges in implementing value-based partnerships.

Promoting child and family wellness: Priorities for psychological and social interventions

In order to foster the well-being of children and families we propose a shift in the priorities of psychological and social interventions. Following a brief discussion of the concept of wellness, we present a framework for interventions to promote child and family wellness. Psychological and social intervention strategies to promote child and family wellness are then reviewed and interpreted in terms of the framework. Recommendations for changing priorities for programmes and policies are based on the framework and a review of the effectiveness of existing interventions. Copyright

Promoting well-being: Time for a paradigm shift in health and human services

The promotion of personal, relational, and collective well-being has evolved markedly in the last three decades. However positive and needed, recent developments in health promotion require further conceptual clarification and synergistic applications. To assist with conceptual clarification, this article proposes to distinguish among sites, signs, sources, and strategies of well-being. With respect to applications, progress is discussed along four domains: temporal, ecological, participation, and capabilities. The temporal domain refers to the timing of interventions and entails a continuum from reactive to proactive strategies. The ecological domain pertains to the site of interventions, ranging from person-centered to community-centered. The participation domain refers to voice and choice of citizens and consumers in delivery of services and access to resources. At one end of this continuum there is empowerment, while at the opposite end we see disempowerment and detachment. Finally, the capabilities domain refers to the concentration on either strengths or deficits. This article argues that a singular focus on strength, prevention, empowerment, or community conditions is insufficient. It presents a framework for the conceptual integration of these four approaches, while illustrating the benefits of their synergy and the risks of their fragmentation. It is high time for a paradigm shift in health and human services, and this article argues that only a new approach that focuses on strengths, prevention, empowerment, and community conditions can make considerable progress towards the achievement of well-being for all.

Towards a Critical Health Psychology Practice

The field of critical psychology is exerting an influence in the way various sub-disciplines within psychology operate. In this article we use a critical psychology framework to review the field of health psychology. Through the use of values, assumptions and practices we review progress in health psychology and offer recommendations for aligning contemporary practices with current thinking in critical psychology. We discuss typical expectations, critical formulations and critical practice for interventions with individuals, groups and communities along these dimensions.