Poverty, ACEs and stigmatised places: The application of psychology to the challenges of disadvantage

Corcoran, Rhiannon ORCID: 0000-0001-8900-9199 (2023) Poverty, ACEs and stigmatised places: The application of psychology to the challenges of disadvantage. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, 96 (3). pp. 577-589.

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/papt.12457

Abstract

<h4>Background</h4>Our life circumstances present continual challenges to our mental health and well-being. For most of us, the politics of economy and society determine our prospects of living a good life. The fact that the ability to control and change things that happen to us is largely vested in the power of remote others has inevitable, mostly negative consequences.<h4>Method</h4>The following opinion piece illustrates the challenge our discipline faces in locating a complimentary contribution alongside those of public health, sociology and other sister disciplines with particular reference to the intractable concerns of poverty, ACES and stigmatised places.<h4>Findings</h4>The piece presents an examination of what psychology as a discipline can do in the context of adversity and challenges that individuals face but over which they have little sense of control. The discipline of psychology needs to play a meaningful part in understanding and addressing the impacts of societal matters, moving from a dominant position of individualised understandings of distress to embrace more fully the context in which people are expected to feel good and function well.<h4>Conclusion</h4>Community psychology offers a useful, established philosophy from which to advance our practices. However, a more sophisticated, discipline-wide narrative and grounded understanding that empathically represents real lives and captures individual functioning within a complex and distant societal system is urgently required.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	adverse childhood experiences, stigmatised places, psychology of poverty, public mental health, community psychology
Divisions:	Faculty of Health and Life Sciences Faculty of Health and Life Sciences > Institute of Population Health
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	07 Mar 2023 11:11
Last Modified:	18 Aug 2023 04:49
DOI:	10.1111/papt.12457
Related URLs:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3168812