Community and Traditional Psychology

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how community psychology is a specialization encompassing psychology and the social sciences that is grounded in the roots of ecological psychology. It looks at how traditional psychology, on the other hand, is based upon fundamental principles of psychoanalysis, behaviorism and humanistic psychotherapies. It examines the differences between these two schools of psychology with reference to a specific individual seeking help for a life problem. The individual selected is the well-known actor, Robert Downey, Jr., whose substance abuse problems have been tracked in the popular press over the course of the last several years.

From the Paper:

"From the traditional psychotherapeutic perspective, substance abuse is regarded as an addiction that is difficult to treat. Garfield and Bergin (1986) have pointed out that behavioral or interactional psychotherapies and conjoint family therapies have been used with individuals identified as having a substance abuse problem, but that the results of these interventions are mixed. Group therapy, twelve-step programs, use of methadone and other detoxification efforts and aversive conditioning have succeeded in a number of cases, but relapse is common among substance abusers."

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