Dr Miles Thompson has recently published a new study in the diamond open access journal, “Community Psychology in Global Perspective” (journal / article). The study explores how UK undergraduate psychology students perceive critical community psychology.
In some ways, critical community psychology grew out of community psychology, which in turn grew out of traditional therapeutic professions, like clinical psychology. (Read a little more about that journey and the differences here). So critical community psychology focuses more on the structural and systemic barriers to social justice, while at the same time incorporating other aspects from community and applied psychology.
Many students taking psychology degrees in the UK aspire to become clinical or counselling psychologists. Indeed, 67% percent of the participants in this study felt they were likely or very likely to take this path. As such, it is of interest to explore their views about this alternative way of thinking about and doing psychology, as well as their thoughts on its relevance to well-being and mental health as they understand it. 239 students rated a list of 43 statements which explore the concepts, values and ideas of critical community psychology. This list was based on previous research published by Miles back in 2007. This earlier study clustered the statements into four different factors. The new study adopted the same structure. Namely:
i. Reflective practice
ii. Acknowledging and understanding
iii. Core socio-political ideas
iv. Radical socio-political ideas
The four factors reflect one way of structuring different aspects of critical community psychology. The factors sit on a continuum which ranges from contemporary ways of working with individuals and groups (i) at one end, to more radical social political ideas (iv) at the other.
In the results of this study, all four factors were significantly and positively related to each other with all correlations above .50. In terms of the factor scores, participants felt all four factors to be relevant to the future of applied psychology related to well-being and mental health as they saw it. However, there were some meaningful differences in these scores (i.e. medium and large effect sizes). Especially between the i. Reflective practice and iv. Radical socio-political ideas scores and the scores for ii. Acknowledging and understanding and iv. Radical socio-political ideas. So while all factors were seen as relevant, some (i. and ii.) were seen as more relevant than others (iv.).
Participants also provided qualitative material on:
i. the statements
ii. on critical community psychology generally
iii. and on its relationship to well-being and mental health
The qualitative material contained a range of responses from more positive to more negative (see image below). Firstly, many participants provided a general positive endorsement of the statements, of critical community psychology, and of the importance of addressing broader systemic factors in applied work. Participants also asked for more information on critical community psychology to be provided both within their degrees – for them as students – but also for the public at large.
Thinking about the focus of applied work, some participants suggested that therapeutic work should include both micro (more individual) and macro (more structural and systemic) elements. While other comments noted that applied work should remain focused on the individual.
Also of interest were a smaller but noteworthy set of comments suggesting that some of the statements about critical community psychology were not relevant to:
i. individual mental health
ii. to psychology
iii. and even were not relevant as ideas.
Overall, the qualitative data helped explain the results from the quantitative data. Many general positive endorsements, but with the suggestion that individual work should still be ‘a’ or ‘the’ focus of interventions, along with some more negative comments questioning the relevance of this material.
The discussion notes how these findings may make sense against a backdrop of many students wanting to start a career in clinical or counselling psychology. And, as such, being more familiar with the idea of traditional individual work, with critical community material being new to them. The discussion also notes how recent other work found that even qualified clinical psychologists with an interest in critical community psychology can struggle to bring some aspects of that interest into the reality of their day to day practice (UWE blog; journal article).
Finally, the discussion also explored the more negative qualitative comments: which in places went as far as to question whether social injustice or oppression exists. The authors make connections to what some have termed the “Intellectual Dark Web” and its possible influence on students who chose to study psychology. Together these points suggest that there are challenges for those who wish to promote the ideas of critical community psychology and continued questions as to how to keep moving towards transformative social change.
The full article can be downloaded from free, by anyone, on the publishers website. If anyone struggles to access the full version, or is interested in discussing the findings, do not hesitate to contact Miles.
Thompson, M., & Thomas, Z. (2023). Critical community psychology: The perceptions of UK undergraduate psychology students. Community Psychology in Global Perspective, 9(2), 125-146. https://doi.org/10.1285/i24212113v9i2p125