Principles of Community Psychology: Perspectives and Applications

Principles of Community Psychology, now in a new edition, is a comprehensive text integrating theory, research, and practice across the diverse subject matter of community mental health and community psychology. Emphasizing an ecological approach, this text places problems in both their current and historical perspectives, focusing on the individual in the environment and the influences that shape and change behavior and mental health. Conceptually built around the models of stressful life events, social support, and coping, it applies these concepts as a key integrative device for analyzing diverse phenomena and interventions which include self-help, prevention, and social action. Thoroughly updated, this second edition has been completely rewritten to include updated references and research, boxes on current topics, chapter outlines, expanded case studies, practical examples, and chapter discussions. The authors have made their arguments and research less abstract and more practical, offering students a more accessible text that presents concrete, detailed, up-to-date examples of programs, research, and scholarship from many different fields. The text covers the history of community mental health and shows its relationship to social welfare policies and legal and political systems. It also shows the limits inherent in the medical model of practice in dealing with such a full range of formal mental health problems, including the every day stressful life events that make up the Soap Opera life. Principles of Community Psychology ultimately challenges community psychologists as well as students of psychology, sociology, and social work to look at the impact of the new conservatism on human services and the opportunities that are presented for innovative approaches in the new political climate.

Murray Levine, Distinguished Service Professor of Psychology, State University of New York, Buffalo. David V. Perkins, Professor of Psychological Science, Ball State University.