Reflective practice: psychodynamic ideas in the community

Abstract

How do we understand and aid meaningful social change? What tools do we need to work in the community, make sense of what we do, and sustain our work through difficult challenges? This original volume takes the debate in a refreshing new direction. It shows that using a psychodynamic approach as a tool gives us radical new ways to tackle difficulties and difference. The emotional costs of living in a conflictual and rapidly changing society are not adequately represented through reference to psychiatric ymptomatology, or through statistics which count numbers of 'victims'. Case studies explore the multiple layers of trauma and conflict in communities and organisations, and the complexity of responses called for. Divides along race, class, culture, gender, language, age, disability, and political lines are discussed extensively, and the power of the 'expert' social service professional is debated from a range of perspectives. The book emphasises how important it is to thoroughly understand the context for community work. While looking at one clinic's efforts to aid positive transformation in a range of South African contexts, it also reflects on the process of change within the clinic itself! It shows how change in others cannot happen without change in ourselves. It asks you, the reader, to engage and challenges you to think deeply and on multiple levels about community-based practice and what it means both for communities and for agents of change.