Imposed identities and limited opportunities: Advocacy agency staff perspectives on the construction of their clients with intellectual disabilities.

Intellectual disability is commonly conceptualised as stigmatised identity; however, within the literature, the notion of a damaged identity is contested. The aim of this research was to explore the social construction of intellectual disability from the perspective of staff who work closely with people with intellectual disabilities. Informed by a contextualist perspective, this research was based on interviews with five staff members of an advocacy agency in a regional area of Australia. Causal layered analysis was used to deconstruct the interview data. Analysis of the interactions that emerged across the causal layers revealed a complex dynamic of world views, which served to dehumanise people with intellectual disabilities and blame them for their own fate (victim blaming). For transformative change to occur, understandings of the 'problems' of intellectual disability must be reformulated and those social structures and processes that support the relationship between the powerful and the powerless must be challenged.

Dealing with wicked problems: conducting a causal layered analysis of complex social psychological issues.

Causal layered analysis (CLA) is an emerging qualitative methodology adopted in the discipline of planning as an approach to deconstruct complex social issues. With psychologists increasingly confronted with complex, and "wicked" social and community issues, we argue that the discipline of psychology would benefit from adopting CLA as an analytical method. Until now, the application of CLA for data interpretation has generally been poorly defined and overwhelming for the novice. In this paper we propose an approach to CLA that provides a method for the deconstruction and analysis of complex social psychological issues. We introduce CLA as a qualitative methodology well suited for psychology, introduce the epistemological foundations of CLA, define a space for it adoption within the discipline, and, outline the steps for conducting a CLA using an applied example.

Mental health of Australian Aboriginal women during pregnancy: identifying the gaps.

Despite Australia's high standard of health care provision, Australian Aboriginal women continue to experience poor pregnancy outcomes in terms of maternal and foetal morbidity and mortality. In an attempt to improve these outcomes, health care providers have developed targeted antenatal programmes that aim to address identified health behaviours that are known to contribute to poor health during pregnancy. While some areas of improvement have been noted in rates of engagement with health services, the rates of premature births and low birth weight babies continue to be significantly higher than in the non-Aboriginal population. It appears that Australian researchers have been focused on the behaviour of the individual and have failed to fully consider the impact that social and emotional well-being has on both health behaviours and pregnancy outcomes. This review has highlighted the need for an approach to both research and clinical practice that acknowledges the Aboriginal view of health which encompasses mental, physical, cultural and spiritual health. Until clinicians and Aboriginal women have a shared understanding of how social and emotional well-being is experienced by Aboriginal women, in other words their explanatory model, it is unlikely that any meaningful improvements will be seen.

Capturing dynamic processes of change in GROW mutual help groups for mental health.

The need for a model that can portray dynamic processes of change in mutual help groups for mental health (MHGMHs) is emphasized. A dynamic process model has the potential to capture a more comprehensive understanding of how MHGMHs may assist their members. An investigation into GROW, a mutual help organization for mental health, employed ethnographic, phenomenological and collaborative research methods. The study examined how GROW impacts on psychological well being. Study outcomes aligned with the social ecological paradigm (Maton in Understanding the self-help organization: frameworks and findings. Sage, Thousand Oaks 1994) indicating multifactorial processes of change at and across three levels of analysis: group level, GROW program/community level and individual level. Outcome themes related to life skills acquisition and a change in self-perception in terms of belonging within community and an increased sense of personal value. The GROW findings are used to assist development of a dynamic multi-dimensional process model to explain how MHGMHs may promote positive change.

Public policy, participation and the third position: the implication of engaging communities on their own terms.

Policy development and implementation should be fundamental for community psychologists in their endeavors to create social change. Policy necessarily is engaged at broad social and political levels, but it is mediated through communities and individuals, and thus appealing for our discipline. We argue that there are increasing opportunities for social input in liberal democracies with the growing awareness of the need to consider social factors in policy. Public participation is one aspect of policy development, but it can be problematic and can disempowered communities, especially disadvantaged communities. Using the framework of the 'third position', a case study of attempts to ameliorate institutional oppression of Australian Aboriginal people through policy change is described. Structural reform to community engagement is described in terms of empowerment and capacity building. Power relationships are deconstructed to allow understandings of the dynamics of policy change, and the broader implications for community psychological praxis are discussed.

The evolution of epistemology and concepts in an iterative-generative reflective practice: the importance of small differences.

Using a contextualist epistemology, it would be expected that regional differences in community psychology would develop over time. It is argued that the epistemology and theory of Western Australian community psychology, while largely based on North American approaches, has developed its own idiosyncracies. These developed through the integration of practice and theory in an "iterative-generative" fashion. The process of development is conceptualized in terms of Schön's and Altman's distinctions between foundational knowledge, and professional and socially responsive knowledge (I. Altman, 1996; D. A. Schön, 1983). It has also been characterized as an incremental development based on the reflection on tacit and conceptual knowledge. From the small differences that have developed between regions, a dialogue can emerge that will better allow understanding of how social forces shape people's actions.