History and Theory of Community Psychology in India: An International Perspective

Abstract

The term community psychology is very new to India. To describe the field, it is helpful to examine the historical developments that preceded the existence of community psychology. A history of psychology in India shows a movement from intrapsychic emphasis to experimental, and more recently to a contextual approach in understanding behavior. The mental health movement is shown to be independent of and a parallel discipline of psychology, as psychology in India has largely remained an academic discipline with its research conducted within the four walls of the laboratory. The efforts by a few psychologists to have an independent subfield of community psychology have shown fruition only in the past decade but have remained largely overshadowed by work done in community development by departments of social work in universities. This chapter highlights the aims of psychologists in India to use a culturally relevant methodology that identifies the needs and resources of a community. The context is important in defining the goals of a people, who should be encouraged to participate in planning and implementation of programs. The authors envisage an ideal ‘organization’ where the national policymakers while formulating interventions for optimizing mental health share the conceptualization of a community’s needs jointly with psychologists.