The article addresses a critical challenge for the discipline of psychology in 2023: understanding and addressing human distress in a world increasingly shaped by remote and complex societal systems. Corcoran argues that while psychology has largely focused on individual-level approaches to mental distress, the root causes of well-being decline often reside beyond the individual’s control, driven by socio-economic and political factors.
The central premise is that psychology must move beyond a dominant position of individualised understandings of distress to more fully embrace the broader context in which people live. The author contends that internal mental and emotional states labeled as ‘faulty’ might, in fact, be adaptive, learned reactions to problematic environments. For example, anger management might be the wrong approach in a predictably violent environment, just as forcing behavior change in resource-poor settings could threaten an individual’s adaptive fitness or short-term survival.
Corcoran specifically examines three interconnected life challenges: poverty, Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), and stigmatized places. The article highlights that these adversities often spiral downwards, creating challenge upon challenge. It is argued that traditional psychological tools are often too blunt to effectively measure impact or uncover mechanisms in resource-depleted circumstances.
A significant part of the article emphasizes the importance of lived experience in understanding disadvantage. The author transparently shares her own credentials, noting her lived experience with ACEs and proximity to stigmatized places, while acknowledging limited direct experience with poverty. This personal reflection underpins a call for psychology to become a wholly inclusive and democratic discipline that values and incorporates diverse experiences, moving beyond academic privilege.
The article advocates for a shift towards a more community-based, culturally sensitive, and cross-disciplinary approach. Community psychology is presented as a valuable, established philosophy that can advance practices, focusing on community as the unit of study and relational systems as its main concern, thereby promoting social justice and empowerment. Key practitioner points derived from this perspective include fully acknowledging living circumstances as determinants of behavior, asking “What’s happened to you?” rather than “What’s wrong with you?”, accepting that power to make changes often rests beyond the individual, recognizing the limitations of individualised approaches, and engaging in cross-disciplinary learning.
In essence, Corcoran’s article is a compelling call for psychology to re-contextualize human behavior, thoughts, beliefs, and feelings, recognizing that de-contextualized human behavior does not exist. It urges the discipline to play a meaningful part in addressing societal matters and to contribute to alleviating distress rooted in imposed impoverishment and inequality, aligning itself with broader public health and sociological efforts.
Reference for this article:
Corcoran, R. (2023). Poverty, ACEs and stigmatised places: The application of psychology to the challenges of disadvantage. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, 96, 577–589. https://doi.org/10.1111/papt.12457.
