Reflections on Wallerstein, Sanchez-Merki, and Dow’s Freirian praxis in health education and community organizing: A case study of an adolescent prevention program Any initiative that actively engages adolescents to take control of their lives by illustrating how they can actively and positively participate in their social environment instead of being a victim of it, is powerful. Wallerstein, Sanchez-Merki & Dow (2006) explore a program that utilized at its heart Freirian empowerment education methods and Ronald Rogers (1984… Read More
Reflections on Pritzker’s Writing and creativity and Richards’ Frank Barron and the study of creativity For a long time, I’ve had my own hypotheses regarding creativity, writing, and imagination, and Pritzker (2011) discusses some of them. What’s immediately intriguing in the citation of large-scale biographical studies is that the writers that were analyzed were likely to be voracious readers and came from homes as very unhappy. This explains a lot… Read More
Reflections on Minkler’s Community organizing among the elderly poor in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district While I am very enthusiastically in support of participatory action research as well as asset-based community development (ABCD) I am also in favor of combining methods to use, whatever is most effective. In this case, neither of the above seemed to work for the Tenderloin Senior Outreach Project but a combination of methods utilizing adaptations… Read More
Reflections on Klitzman, Kass, and Freudenberg’s Coalition building to prevent childhood lead poisoning While this article was written in 2006, and Klitzman, et al (2006) discuss lead poisoning in the water system of New York City, I have to ask, why there is no initiative federally to eliminate the poisons in our water, when, albeit only limitedly, unfortunately, the 14th amendment was used to break down some Jim… Read More
Reflections on Cropley’s Definitions of creativity, Richards’ Everyday creativity, and Richards’ Everyday creativity and the arts Creativity is part of human life and it may be a part of existence on earth whether it is human or not, but that is a conversation and a debate for a later day. Human beings, and this is my view, have an innate and vital need to create, whether it is procreation or some… Read More
Reflections on Christie, et al’s Peace psychology for a peaceful world, Hall and Pilisuk’s The social healer, Mang’s Toward a regenerative psychology of urban planning, Rountree’s Joining inner and outer approaches to freedom, Hoffman’s Existential activism, and Bargdill’s Existential activism While there is a rich history of peace psychology according to Christie, et al that dates back to William James (Christie, et al 2008), there is also a rich history of conflict resolution, of peaceful anti-war protests, of the Society of Friends (Quakers) engaging in conscientious objection and outward neutrality during conflicts while participating in… Read More
Reflections on Foshee’s Involving schools and communities in preventing adolescent dating abuse The title of Foshee’s (1998) article suggests preventative measures to minimize adolescent dating abuse. It is, but I will take issue with a few basic ideas and methods later. Towards that end, “Safe Dates,” a school- and community-based adolescent abuse prevention program was studied to determine if the intervention helped to alleviate intimate partner violence. … Read More
Reflections on Gutiérrez and Lewis’ Education, participation, and capacity building in community organizing with women of color Gutiérrez and Lewis (2006) discuss a topic close to my heart and one that will be an aspect of my participatory action research in the future, community organizing in communities of color, especially with women and girls of color since societally they are the most oppressed and taken for granted and forgotten by the larger… Read More
Reflections on Nelson’s Psychology, religion, and spirituality, Johnson and Friedman’ Enlightened or delusional? Schneider’s Awakening to an awe-based psychology, and Fehl’s Spirituality and existentialism Within the Universe, spiritually and otherwise, I see connections everywhere. Nelson (2009) posits that that interconnectedness between psychology and religion has been especially dominant over the last century, but I would argue that it has been especially for millennia, though not categorized under any specific labels of Western Psychology, as is the case with Hinduism,… Read More
Reflections on Qualitative Research Methods, the Qualitative Case Study and Reactions to Hays’ Community activists’ perceptions of citizenship roles in an urban community I am grateful for many experiences and environments in my life, including the ethnic influence of my father, that allowed me to experience different cultures and be open with others that were different from my bicultural identity. This influence, in many ways, brought me here to a place where I am curious about everything, with… Read More
Reflections on Rappaport’s The art of social change – Community narratives as resources for individual and collective identity Rappaport (1998) reinforces a previous written critique I had in another course. Researchers in community psychology as well as humanistic psychology are not there for themselves or to dictate a narrative, whether it is finding a means to evolve through a series of community problems or not. Rappaport explains it as being, “useful to people… Read More
Reflections on Hoffman’s Toward a deep diversity in humanistic psychology, Hoffman’s Multiculturalism, epistemological diversity, language, and Johnson’s Cultural competency and humanistic psychology Hoffman (2012) waxes about as nostalgic as I did when I left the sociology department at the University of West GA for the humanistic psychology department that eventually guided my light to Saybrook. Finding humanist psychology and intersectional feminist inclusiveness felt like home. Multiculturalism is a powerful manifestation of that and a subject that may… Read More
Reflections on Qualitative Approaches, Especially Grounded Theory and Crawford, et al’s Women’s understanding of the effects of domestic abuse Having studied qualitative methods in a previous course, grounded theory as Locke, et al (2010) describe it is familiar territory for me. Before discovering asset-based community development (ABCD) and participatory action research (PAR), grounded theory was particularly intriguing because the research determined the theory, rather than the theory determining the research. My familiarity with it… Read More
Reflections on Roe, et al’s Community building through empowering evaluation – A case study of HIV prevention community planning Roe et al (2006) offer an intriguing commentary on community in this country and a unique counterpoint on how it should function. The United States is seen as stereotypically individualistic, which is, unfortunately, a reality in a majority of this country, while AIDS is seen as an area where “effective prevention must be community-based, ecologically… Read More
Reflections on Comas-Dias’ Humanism and multiculturalism, Quinn’s A person-centered approach to multicultural counseling competence, Taylor and Nanney’s An existential gaze at multiracial self-concept, Hanks’ The Ubuntu paradigm, and Hoffman’s Creating a home for diversity in humanistic psychology While humanism is admirable and multiculturalism is admirable and ideal, Comas-Dias (2012) does not operationalize either term, relying instead on a commonly accepted definition without defining it. Additionally, examples of what the author believes other cultures view as humanistic and multicultural are cited, but all without an operationalized definition. This is obviously dangerous because anyone… Read More
Reflections on Histories of Theories of Memory, Neath’s Learning and Memory: In Humans, and Molbak’s Meaning and memory: A Heideggerian analysis of children’s first memories Intelligence, defined strictly, is qualified as educational intelligence, but this is a definition I don’t necessarily accept. From my father and a shelterless man named Uriel, whom I met decades ago, I learned clearly that education is not a sign of intelligence. My father is an immigrant whose original language is not English and Uriel… Read More
Reflections on Kretzmann and McKnight’s Building Communities from the Inside Out (pp. 171-376) Kretzmann and McKnight (1993) cover all aspects of community building from individuals to associations to local institutions and taking those assets and rebuilding and mobilizing. I may have reiterated this before, but while this book is powerful, it is large and not portable and there are no printable forms. Since its printing in 1993, it… Read More
Qualitative Research Reflections on Dowson and McInerney’s Psychological parameters of students’ social and work avoidance goals and Applications to My Own Qualitative Research For reasons of in depth analysis and to allow study participants their full voice, qualitative research and inquiry is where my heart, mind, and soul are, because, to me, people are more than mere numbers and statistics, though, in a very limited capacity, I can see where quantitative research may be useful when a certain… Read More
Reflections on Rieber’s Entry on Perception and Schroeder’s Sex and gender in sensation and perception Rieber defines perception in context as, “an experience that results from stimulation of the senses. It can be examined by verbal description and by psychophysical experiment, or it can be related to the processes in the nervous system that accompany the experience.” He also cites Aristotle’s classification of the five senses. Yet, Rieber spends the… Read More
Reflections on Kretzmann & McKnight’s Building Communities from the Inside Out (pp. 109-170) Kretzmann & McKnight (1993) have codified, more or less what I have done to research necessary information, be it looking for research materials for a report, digging up an obscure musical recording, and especially resources to help individuals with personal or health crises. Here it is codified neatly into one compact place, this time with… Read More