issue 1 09 - APS Member Groups - Australian Psychological Society

New Paradigms in Health Psychology103citizenship and democracy have been thedominant paradigm in health and humanservices for decades. The SPECS frameworkprovides strength based, preventative,empowering and community orientatedapproaches a chance to promote personal,relational and collective wellbeing. It strives toalter disadvantageous social conditions throughcommunity based participatory strategies andaction research projects that foster leadershipand individual skills (Prilleltensky, 2005).According to the SPECS model, at theindividual level persons are considered siteswhere cognitions, feelings and tangibleexperiences of wellbeing occur. Wellbeinghere is reflected in personal control, which iscontingent upon opportunities to exercise voiceand choice, which in turn are promoted byempowerment. Signs of personal wellbeinginclude self-determination, optimism, sense ofcontrol, self-efficacy, physical and mentalhealth, meaning and spirituality and degrees ofself-actualisation. Major causes ofpsychological distress and oppression includeneurosis, anxiety and personal inadequacy, soone’s ability to cope effectively is paramountto attaining or maintaining wellbeing.Wellbeing on the individual level is thus aboutself-empowerment, personal insight andchanging one’s own behaviour, knowledge,attitudes and beliefs. It is about avoidingvictim blaming, and the internalisation ofdisempowering ideologies (Prilleltensky,2005).Relationships are sites where materialand psychological resources are negotiatedbetween individuals or groups. On therelational level, signs of wellbeing includedemocratic participation in decision-makingprocesses, respect for diversity, nurturance andaffection, support and cooperation. Relationalwellbeing encompasses lifestyle environmentalfactors such as occupational health, and theavoidance of stressors in family, educationaland social settings. Maintaining wellbeing onthis level is about creating awareness of socialpower dynamics, and re-examining thepersonal appraisal processes of triggers thatcreate stress and anxiety (Prilleltensky,2005).Communities as sites of wellbeingdisplay features including a fair andequitable allocation of bargaining powers,resources and obligations in society, as wellas gender and race equality, universal accessto high quality healthcare and educationfacilities, affordable housing, clean air, andaccessible transportation and employmentopportunities. Wellbeing at this levelstrongly parallels with Baro’s LiberationPsychology (cited in Burton & Kagan,2004) and essentially derives from policiesof social justice, advocated by socialmovements that endeavour to create andimprove institutions that deliver services toall citizens (Prilleltensky, 2005).In order to advance wellbeing at thethree levels, the SPECS model has a numberof strategies that cover the range of domainsof wellbeing and attend to the various signsand sources of the three sites.Comprehensive promotion of wellbeingmust address four corresponding domains;the temporal, ecological, participation andcapabilities. Only a small amount ofresources are allocated to prevention inmany health systems and this corresponds tothe temporal and ecological domains. Thevast majority of resources are assigned torehabilitative costs such as therapeuticinterventions, and hospital maintenance.This is the reactive approach, a remnant ofthe still dominant medical model. Instead ofwaiting for citizens to develop illness thatmedicine and psychology can only treat atvery high financial and human costs, SPECSrecognises that the best way to lessen theincidence and prevalence of suffering isthrough prevention. This model proposescost effective high quality preventativeinterventions (Prilleltensky, 2005).In order to experience wellbeinghuman beings have to experienceaffirmation first and this corresponds to theThe Australian Community Psychologist Volume 21 No 1 June 2009