Change and development: psycho-social approach to community-based innovation

Abstract

First at all, I would like to thank the kindly invitation of Ghent University to participate in this event. It is really a privilege and a pleasure to be here. Thank you very much.

In this opportunity, I will address some concepts concerning Psycho-Social Change Model, with some emphasis in the so called “local development perspective”, and I will comment its applications only in the context of my country: Bolivia.

This approach emerged from Community Psychology (CP) as a necessary response from the developing countries interested in reshape the traditional notion of development. Psycho-social change model is also an interpellation to traditional social psychology which adopts an ideological neutral position in the study of human processes. It also gained strength and popularity in the critique of clinical psychology which seeks solutions far from the social context that determines and maintains human problem behavior (i.e. in the conventional mental health center).