positive community interventions as social change s

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POSITIVE COMMUNITY INTERVENTIONS ASSOCIAL CHANGE

Helena gueda [email protected] Miguel Neto [email protected]

Psychology DepartmentLisbon University
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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Connecting

1.What was the most beautiful thing you saw in your way here?

2.If you had to choose a new word to connect to your name, as a nickname,

what word would you pick that shows some positive quality about yourself?

3.What was the best moment that you already experienced this week

4.What was something that made you laugh recently?

5.When you want to have pleasure in your life, what do you choose to do?

6.What is the area of your life that you are more engaged and dedicated to?

7.If you wanted to enhance positive emotions in your life, what would be the

smallest step you could take to feel better?

8.What would you say is the heart of your life, that gives meaning to it?


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While there is no way to compensate for an

atrocity, there is a way to transcend it, by making ita gift to others. The trauma is redeemed only whenit becomes the source of a survivor mission

(Herman, 1992)

Intervening beyond the individual, serving

as a source of major dynamic change withina group, an entire culture or a society .

We must find larger scale, group forms

of intervention (Bloom, 2003).


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The conceptual models of our intervention

Positive psychology

(Duckworth, Steen & Seligman, 2005; Joseph & Linley, 2005; Seligman, 2002)

Solution-focused brief therapy (De Shazer, 1991)

Appreciative Inquiry (Srivastva and Cooperider, 1987)

Systemic Approqaches (Hoffman, 1998)

Appreciative ProvocativeApplicable Collaborative

Language as the tool for change.

The power of questions.


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A problem is a frustrated dream

Peter Lang


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Open those blinded

eyesfor there is no trueeffort in looking for it,

those gifts of life areeverywhere around us

Chris Kinman, 2008


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We see what we look for and we miss much of what

we are not looking for even though it is there... Our

experience of the world is heavily influenced bywhere we place our attention.

Stavros and Torres, 2004

Provocare Pro-voke (prompt to have a voice)

Promover Pro-mote/pro-motion (encourage action)

Emancipare Change power positions (stimulateequalitarian relations)

(Rui Grcio, 2004)


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Brief-solution focused base exercise

The scaling question:In a scale from 1 to 10, being 1 total lack of

confidence that the persons you work with canchange with your help, and 10 absolute confidencethat they can and will change for the better with

your support, which number describes the bestyour current feelings of confidence?Why haven't you selected 1 point less?

What would be necessary in order to improve point

in your level of confidence?

Imagine you have said 10, can you describe it?What is happening?


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IF YOU WERE ABLE TO DIVE INTO THE WORD YOU CHOSE,

LIKE IN A POOL, WHAT WOULD YOU SEE/FEEL?

Whats your key word that describes the best

your work/your passion?


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Inter-Actions model:

1. Conversations(rhizomatic, appreciative, transformative,

away from the conversations aimed at problem eradication)

2. Communion (gift giving, abundance oftalents, food and drink)

3. Comic (laughter as a subversivetool)

(Kinman , 2006; Marujo & Neto, 2011)

A i i I i S l i f d P iti P h l


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Appreciative Inquiry Solution-focus and

Systemic Approaches

Positive Psychology

Concepts,

features andtools

Appreciative Interview

When was the funniestmoment we experienced

here in school

What are our dreams for

optimizing respectful love in

our

organization/community?

When were we prouder of

ourselves in this

house/institution?

4D Cycle

Appreciative Evaluation

SOLUTION-FOCUS

Speech Acts as unit of analysis

and intervention (e.g. How

were you able to use humor tomanage this challenge?)

Baby steps for change

Questions:

Scaling

Miracle

Confronting

Fake it, fake it, until you make

it

SYSTEMIC

Rhizome and Gift Giving

Practices (Lynn Hoffman & Chris

Kinman)

World Caf methodology

Experiential:

VIA - Values in Action

approached collectively(Treeof virtues in the

organization/home or

Mapping the strengths of

our community)

Positive Emotions: kids

from one system (School)

writing gratitude/best

moment letters to persons

in another system they are

part of, and gathering all

afterwards

Games to foster the Ratio of

Communication 3:1

Humor Strategies

VIP

Time Machine

Art


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Performative arts are rootedin social rites for resolvingindividual and group trauma.

Bloom, 2003

Food and drink are rhizomatic waysof connecting as equals, allowing todeconstruct power positions,encourage positive emotions, and area coming together to prepare forprofound and insightfulconversations

Neto & (Neto & Marujo, 2011)


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Painting is an

instrument ofoffensive and

defensive war against

the enemy.Picasso, 1976

Humor is one of the most

potent antidotes to fear

Humor as a tool for thinking change


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Humor as a tool for thinking change


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Treinar a criao de humor


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Renewing communicational rites/routines: New

ways to say Hi, to say Good-morning.

Oh, what a lovely day to meet such an

extraordinary human being!


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INSPIRATION LEADS TO INCREASED WELL-BEING. IT APPEARSTHAT INSPIRATION MAKES US FEEL MORE GRATEFUL, IN A BETTER

MOOD, AND MOBILIZES TO HAVE A HIGHER SENSE OF PURPOSE -

AND THEN GRATITUDE AND PURPOSE MAKE US FEEL GREATER

WELL-BEING.

Todd Thrashs research takes a left-field approach to well-

being, starting with the suggestion that by focusing only on

agency, and what we can do to intentionally increase our well-

being, we might be obscuring other important influences,

namely relational issues, like INSPIRATION FROM OTHERS.

Thrash, T.M., Elliot, A.J., Maruskin, L.A. & Cassidy, S.E.

(2010). Inspiration and the promotion of well-being: Tests of

causality and mediation. Journal of Personality and Social

Psychology, 98(3). 488-506.


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DIFFERENT MODELS, NEW RESULTS?


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TRADITIONAL PARADIGM

A DEFICIT AND NEGATIVE FOCUS:

To assess and intervene in what is

wrong, what is not well, what isdysfunctional, what needs to be fixedand around necessities, to fill the gaps.

A LANGUAGE ABOUTTHE IMPOSSIBLE:

To speak about the others asinadequate, to diagnose and impose anabstract and fragmented label of illness;to segregate to treat.


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IT IS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE NOT TOBECOME WHAT OTHERS THINK OF US.Gabriel Garcia Marques


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A NEUTRAL ANDAMORALPERSPECTIVE:A science that distantiates itself from values and fromtaking positions about good or bad, and consequentlyneglects cultural, historical, social, political,philosophicalroots and grows separated from peoplesreal life experience and what really matters to them.

A CHOICE FOR CONNECTION WITH MEDICALMODELS:

With the dangerous collage with pharmaceuticalsolutions and biological explanations.

AN INDIVIDUAL AND INTRA-PSYCHIC PERSPECTIVE:


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AN INDIVIDUAL AND INTRA-PSYCHIC PERSPECTIVE:

There is a problem and it is inside the person, a

problem that is disengaged from his/her

experiences and whose solution is individual.

ACHOICEFORTREATMENTANDREMEDIATION:

Neglecting promotion and enhancing the best

there is and the solutions that are closer to the

dream.


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NEW PARADIGM

A PERSPECTIVE OF ABUNDANCE:everyone has gifts to share

AN APPRECIATIVE AND POSITIVEAPPROACH TO SCIENCE:

we impact people when we doresearch

RESEARCH AS TRANSFORMATIVE AND


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NEW PARADIGM

RESEARCH AS TRANSFORMATIVE ANDCOLLABORATIVE ACTION:

More than a photograph and unobtrusiveprocess, research is constructed intentionality as

a promoter of positive change.

A LANGUAGE OF HOPE AND EMPOWERMENT:

Using communication, the linguistic expression

and the speech acts as the main vitalinstruments for change, choosing appreciativeand solution-focused talk, and being precise andaccurate at it.


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NEW PARADIGM

A CONTEXTUAL SCIENCE WITHOUT THE ERROR AND

IMPOSSIBLE IDEAL OF NEUTRALITY:

to study and intervene in poverty or injusticeis a choice.

A MULTISISTEMIC, RELATIONAL AND DIALOGIC

SCIENCE:

language creates reality and constructs meaning

through relations and multilevel,

intergenerational, conversations.


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NEW PARADIGM

ACOMMUNITYANDGIFT-GIVING APPROACH:

Caring for egalitarian, rhizomatic and co-construction

perspectives in community interventions.

To serve, never to colonize

(Aponte, 1994)


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Sweets and smiles Project

Co-construction ofchange (what is

send/said comes

around) supported in

collaboration and

strategies using both

hemispheres (non-

verbal symbolic

languages, such as

humor, art, dance,drama, celebrations,

walks, contact with

nature)


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ECO (Educating for Optimism) Project

IntergenerationConversations:

Appreciative

Inquiry interviewsconducted bychildren in thecommunity

exploring and thenamplifying thecommon good


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Rebuilding hope Project

Involving leaders of

the community in

intergerational

conversations aboutthe hystory and

stories of the

communities

F ili d h l id b


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Families and schools, side by

side Project

Systemic

interventions around

the best of the pastand the dreams for

the future


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EVALUATING THE INTER-ACTIONSIMPACT

Uma forma de educar com base na Psicologia Positiva


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ASSESSMENT

- Transformative value ofassessment/evaluativetransformation:Living andTelling about it D.Kahneman,J.Riis (2006) - DSM + ESMM.Csikszentmihalyi)

- Appreciative evaluation(appreciative interviews to

explore the best of theexperience) (Coghlan, 2003)

Qualitative methodsand Quantifying with ameaning (ex. adaptingscaling questions,Marujo & Neto et al., 2007;

Marujo & Neto, 2009;Marujo & Neto, 2011

Culture/sub-culturesensitivity: language

change. Gathering tohave perspectives fromother systems.

positive community interventions as social change s

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