Community feeling and social interest: Adlerian parallels, synergy and differences with the field of community psychology

Abstract

AbstractThe field of community psychology has generally elided the insights of depth psychology and the traditions of Freud, Adler and Jung. Implicitly rejecting the notion of the unconscious, community psychology favours conscious, pragmatic agency. Whereas depth psychology is commonly associated with treatment modalities, community psychology argues that psychotherapy is ultimately unnecessary when prevention strategies are adequately deployed. In the critical and community psychology literature psychotherapy is often derided as both ‘individualistic’ and inefficient. Adlerian psychology, which espouses a method of psychotherapy, nevertheless holds key points of synergy with community psychology. To distinguish the school from psychoanalysis Alfred Adler named his approach ‘Individual Psychology’, which could obscure its' social orientation. Like community psychologists, Adlerians similarly argue for a sense of cohesive community as crucial to mental health. They have also adopted an ecological holism as core epistemology, and argue for reducing the necessity of psychotherapy by working in tandem on community‐based prevention strategies. The authors consider the rationale for community psychology's distance from the depth psychologies whilst arguing that the unconscious could, if engaged with analytically, provide the discourse with radical new insights. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.