Toward Social Health for a Global Community

Abstract

In chapter 4, we offered an understanding of health as coherence of mind, body, heart, and spirit in a particular socio-historical context. In this chapter, we take the discussion to its next logical level—the level of society. Previous chapters have examined in detail how the root causes of many seemingly individual symptoms—loneliness, isolation, alienation, anxiety, anomie, low self-esteem, depression, relationship distress, addictions, violence, attention deficit disorders, eating disorders, and others—are at least partly influenced by the beliefs, behaviors, and lifestyles generated by the assumptions and values of global capitalism, and particularly individualism, crude materialism, consumerism, greed, commodification, wealth distribution inequities, and labor exploitation. In this chapter, we focus on the relatively new and undeveloped construct of social health. We examine the need for a coherent and systemic understanding of social health as central to the ability of psychology as a field to become increasingly socially responsible and promote individual and collective health. We work from the recognition, elaborated in the opening chapter, that the transition into the twenty-first century has seen the emergence of a new Zeitgeist, reflecting complex historical processes of further differentiation and fragmentation, and an emergent new level of integration. The question we now pose is how can psychology as a social science respond to this new Zeitgeist of a vast and growing surge toward increasingly organized efforts to overcome violent and destructive systemic forces and to create sustainable and just global governance? How can psychology help articulate, along with other social and physical sciences, a practical and systemic vision of a healthy global society, and a viable path toward this collective goal? (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)