Share your interactive ePaper on all platforms and on your website with our embed function. Jansen, DosiljkaDjikanovic Community Psychology also has been and will be in the future a quest for a political identity as a psychologistwho wants to improve social justice and individual well-being in a complex world.
Frese stated that psychology today needs a currency that is as important and respected as money. Therefore, psychology should develop well-being and happiness as a psychological currency in contrast tomoney and economic goods only. In order to achieve this, psychology needs to have an impact an all spheres ofsocial life — community and social systems, economy, politics etc.
For the future of Europe well-being, individual and collective happiness and social justice will become importantelements of a currency which should be more important than money. Many multidisciplinary studies have shownthat the key to individual well-being is maintaining social networks, community building, and enhanceempowerment processes.
If one compares community psychology to other psychological disciplines, the picture is quite paradox: CP on theone hand looks like an island of science and practice being not very influential within the discipline of psychology,but at the same time CP discourses and research topics seem to have a broad impact on many disciplines. Oneof the reasons for this paradoxical picture is the concept of CP: CP always has oriented itself towards a systemicview of social dynamics in the world by integrating individual and group levels, community, organizational andsocietal levels of analysis.
Because the concept of community psychology is transdisciplinary by nature, CPidentity bears a wide variety of regional and individual scholarly stories, and is trying to integrate personal valuesystems and scientifically based interdisciplinary research and practice within its boundaries. This systemic view is in the core ofCPs belief system and has been developed since 30 years. Especially today the transdisciplinary concept of CP has the potential to be one of the most powerful appliedpsychologies in civil society.
