What attracted you to community psychology?
When I was a teenager I wondered what I could to do to “change the world”. I couldn’t take a position between thinking that an action aimed at individual people was necessary (such as volunteering, helping someone in difficulty, etc.), or instead thinking that it was necessary to change the structural conditions that produce distress, discomfort, inequality (such as undertaking collective actions, engage politically, etc.). I also asked myself: Is it important to change the way of thinking of individual people or is it more relevant to create opinion movements?
Consistent with this “unresolved question” of mine, when I enrolled at the university, I was attracted to both sociology and psychology, and I met social psychology. This was a social psychology, as proposed and developed by Piero Amerio, with a strong reference to Lewin. Therefore, finding a psychology that was not only aimed at studying the individual in his/her singularity and specificity, since “no one lives alone”, but focused on deepening the “individual in context” helped me to understand that it is not necessary to choose between dealing with the individual or deal with the context, but they are interdependent. The OR (one or the other… OR individual or context) has turned into AND (individual AND context) and community psychology gives a “concrete answer” to this question.
What makes community psychology special, attractive or useful?
Community psychology (CP) constitutes a training basis for all people who want to undertake the psychology profession. It is essential.
It is essential because even those who choose the clinical profession should be able to read the social, the institutional and structural dynamics and processes that produce discomfort/wellbeing. It is essential because the causes of discomfort often originate in the living conditions of the subjects, and therefore it is necessary to propose intervention where the problem raises, creating functional link between individuals and contexts. It is essential because it is fundamental to develop social and individual resources and protective factors. CP therefore provides “tools” for a systemic-ecological intervention, because psychological processes interface with the contextual dynamics.
An event that was formative for your engagement with community psychology?
In 1986, with the new organization of the degree in Psychology, the course of Clinical and Community Psychology was established, in which CP was a fundamental subject.
When CP arrived at Italian universities, the path was in some ways already paved. It was a question of starting from Lewin to develop a theory of practice that clarified the objectives, purposes, tools and specificities of community psychology.
Proposing CP among the fundamental disciplines for a training curriculum in Psychology in Italy (in 1986; if I am not wrong) was important. In addition to the first Italian texts and handbooks (Francescato, Palmonari, Zani and, obviously, Amerio) I went to search for the U.S. literature to find the key words that characterized this discipline. What could I tell, besides Lewin? It was an interesting path, which was also enriched thanks to exchanges with other Italian and foreign community psychologists.
Most important achievements of community psychology in Italy, in your view?
I think that CP in Italy has contributed to opening a critical reflection on the role of the psychological profession (a debate that is still completely open today), underlining the need to give voice to people (and not to “patients”), to contribute to building living, working and educational contexts, aimed at well-being, thus developing potential and resources, thus avoiding stigmatizing or labeling the most fragile people. It is also a question of ensuring that the psychological intervention is not intended to confirm the status quo (in this regard the theme of adaptation is crucial on this point), but that it is a promoter of change and transformation.
How do you practice CP in your daily work, that is, on an everyday basis?
The ecological-systemic approach, to which CP refers, constitutes my chosen paradigm/model. I teach this in universities.
Furthermore, when my collaboration and participation in interventions promoted by public bodies, associations, third sector organizations are requested, my attention is always placed on sharing an interpretation that sees the human being as an “active subject in context”.
Is there a painting or mural that symbolizes what CP is for you?
Il Quarto Stato (The Fourth Estate), Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo (1901)
Inspired by a workers’ strike, the work celebrates the affirmation of a new social class, that of the proletariat (or Fourth Estate), which has found the strength to demand respect for its rights.