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Community psychology and politics
Author(s) -
Smail David
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
journal of community and applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.042
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1099-1298
pISSN - 1052-9284
DOI - 10.1002/casp.2450040103
Subject(s) - normative , politics , empowerment , psychology , social psychology , community psychology , rhetoric , sociology , power (physics) , distress , epistemology , social science , psychotherapist , political science , law , philosophy , linguistics , physics , quantum mechanics
If community psychology is to profit from its experience to develop an accurate and consistent theory of the effect on individuals of societal pressures, it will need to review reflexively its own position in relation to politics and empowerment. Despite an inspirational and at times positively grandiose rhetoric, psychologists are in fact in no particularly powerful position to influence the factors which cause personal distress, and should not, through a pretence of therapeutic potency, ‘psychologize’ the notion of ‘empowerment’ and reinforce therapeutic ideals which are in fact destructively normative. Without attempting to appropriate politics, community psychology can, however, offer an essentially scientific analysis of power and distress, which may have therapeutically ‘demystifying’ qualities as well as important political implications for the wider society.