"New" values in the psychosocial and community practice: shared autonomy, self-care, human development, empowerment and Social Justice

Abstract

Values are conceptions of good which enlighten and guide human analysis and action. Discounting noteworhy exceptions, community psychology has neglected making explicit and openly discussing its ethical and value dimensions. My aim in this paper to partially remedy such neglect by posing new sustantive values and approaches suitable for community practice. I suggest first changes in the deontological values to adapt them to the complexity and dynamism of community work. So I put forward shared or collective autonomy, that extends self-direction to the whole community, to substitue for individual disolving autonomy. I also introduce self-care (legitimate self-beneficence) to guarantee psychological and moral integrity of the practitioner as well as long term sustainability of communiy action. I describe, secondly, some core communitarian values. Human development which includes interaction and social bonding besides self-direction. Empowerment, an instrumental value, made of subjective consciousness, communication, and effective social action. Social justice, the main socio-communitarian value, consist of three components: a vital universal minimum, fair distribution of material and psychosocial goods and resources produced by society, and igualitarian personal treatment and relationship.