Clinical Sociology in Québec: When Europe Meets America

Abstract

This chapter presents the major historical steps in the development of clinical sociology in Quebec, the Canadian province that has a majority of French-speaking Canadians. The foundations of the clinical approach in Quebec first came from U.S. influences in sociological and psychosocial works, mainly from the Chicago School and the human relations movement in the 1950s and 1960s. A second phase is characterized by European influences, mostly from France; these were theories based on post-Marxist critical sociology and what was called the psycho-sociological approach, a mix of sociology and psychoanalysis. Those theoretical dimensions supported new fields of social practice: the planning of change in the US and social analysis in Europe. Organizational development and community development are good illustrations of the Participatory Action Research (PAR) model that serves as the main reference of those practices. Then, in the 1980s, came the idea of clinical sociology to Canada with an international network reinforcing that orientation. In recent years, in Quebec, a clinical perspective in organizational settings and in community groups focusing on healthy work strategies has been developed. Alongside the overall PAR model, a specific methodology of life narratives or life stories in small groups or community groups gained in importance.