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On knowing the community of caring persons: A methodological basis for the reflective‐generative practice of community psychology
Author(s) -
Dokecki Paul R.
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.585
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 1520-6629
pISSN - 0090-4392
DOI - 10.1002/1520-6629(199201)20:1<26::aid-jcop2290200105>3.0.co;2-2
Subject(s) - community psychology , generative grammar , foundation (evidence) , intervention (counseling) , action (physics) , face (sociological concept) , psychology , postmodernism , sociology , psychotherapist , engineering ethics , epistemology , social psychology , social science , political science , computer science , artificial intelligence , philosophy , physics , quantum mechanics , psychiatry , law , engineering
The combination of generative‐reflective practice and human science provides a powerful postpositivist rationale for community research and action. As a foundation for this rationale, the paper begins with an analysis of persons‐in‐community and of caring as the core of community psychology intervention. This analysis is based on work of 20th‐century Scottish philosopher John Macmurray. In Macmurray's view, the person and the community are hierarchically and emergently organized at mechanistic, organic, and personal levels. This multilevel organization requires multiple methods: experimental and functional studies, systems studies, interpretive studies, and worldview ( Weltanschauung ) studies. Such a methodological framework is comprehensive, nondualistic, and holistic. It promises to enable community psychologists to address the complexity of the life of persons‐in‐community and the many pressing intervention tasks we face in the postmodern world (Newbrough, this issue).