PSY 106 Chapter Notes - Chapter 12: Orlando Fals Borda, Paulo Freire, Community Psychology
Community Psychology: what it is and how it transforms societies
This aspect of psychology is oriented to achieve social changes and transformations.
Psychology is a diverse discipline as old that has helped us generate many ways to understand
both our individual behavior and interpersonal relationships.
Community psychology is one of the branches of psychology that is especially oriented towards
producing social changes and transformations from the perspective of the actors themselves.
What is Community Psychology?
Community psychology, or community social psychology, is a theory and a 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 also from other especially human and social sciences, 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 that emerged in Italy and the United States in the mid-
20th century and that made a point or denounced some limitations of traditional ways of doing
psychology.
Similarly, it has important influences on 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.
Document Summary
Community psychology: what it is and how it transforms societies. This aspect of psychology is oriented to achieve social changes and transformations. Psychology is a diverse discipline as old that has helped us generate many ways to understand both our individual behavior and interpersonal relationships. Community psychology is one of the branches of psychology that is especially oriented towards producing social changes and transformations from the perspective of the actors themselves. It is an interdisciplinary theory because it includes an organized set of ideas and knowledge that come not only from psychology, but also from other especially human and social sciences, 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 that emerged in italy and the united states in the mid- 20th century and that made a point or denounced some limitations of traditional ways of doing psychology.
