Editorial: The Sociocultural Context of Psychosocial Interventions

摘要

During the last decades several authors have criticized the arrival of evidence-based practice (EBP) approaches due to its contribution to the decontextualization of psychosocial and behavioral health interventions (Coghlan and Brydon-Miller, 2014). The term decontextualization here refers to the fact that, although it is not something explicit in its foundations (Leach, 2006), EBP researchers have in practice largely prioritized the internal over the external validity of evaluations. In other words, the problem is not the use of evidence against tradition, intuition or power; but that what has been considered “good” evidence has been narrowed to be aligned with the dogma of behavioral sciences' neutrality. In relation to this alleged neutrality, Cushman (1990) already discussed the historical configuration of the “self” concept. Psychology, he argued, has the role of “healing the empty self (…) without being able to address its historical causes,” (pp. 599) thus being responsible in part for the very process of “emptying” which it claims, and aims, to address. Cushman argues that psychology strives to appear as a neutral science, while its interests—its subjects, ideologies and businesses—have “historical antecedents, economic constituents, and political consequences” (p. 600). In this regard, Sampson (1989), gives evidence that the transformation of psychology as a discipline in which the functional unit of social order has moved from the community and the household to the individual level, as postmodernism and globalization have exerted their influences. The theory of the individual as a rational and self-directed entity has produced several industries that are responsible for ensuring the proper functioning of a newly disembodied self. Among these, mental health, which has focused on eliminating symptoms regardless of their source, has become one of the fastest developing industries during the past century.