Social stress and community psychology

Abstract

Two questions that embarrass community psychologists are: "What do community psychologists do?" "What's the difference between community psychology and clinical psychology?" A conceptual model is proposed to help to find answers to these questions. The model describes a process whereby psychosocial stress leads to psychopathology. The argument is developed that the apparently disparate activities of community psychologists are uniformly directed at undermining the stress process but, given the complexity of this process, vary because they tackle it at different points.