A world-renowned community psychologist, Prof. Caterina Arcidiacono, visited us in Grahamstown 22-26 May. As an experienced academic and trained psychologist of many years standing, Caterina has been influenced by figures from the Milan School of Systemic Therapy, and by the founder of Community Psychology in Italy. Caterina is past chair of the European Community Psychology Association. She is a senior professor in Gender Studies at Università Federico II in Naples. Caterina’s expertise is in Participatory Action Research (PAR), but also in Participatory Multi-faceted Organizational Assessment (PMOA), pioneered in Italy. She has a history of working intersectionally in public health, community development and gender studies, making links between clinical and organizational psychology; as well as in local government, using innovative methodologies for organizational assessment and interventions.
During her time in Grahamstown, she discussed her gender-related work with colleagues in our CSSR over a lunchtime seminar. On the following day, she presented a seminar, open to all interested colleagues, giving examples of the work in PMOA. Finally, on the third day here, she ran a seminar for our psychology Masters students, related to her community psychology work. We are appreciative of funding from the Centre for Postgraduate Studies to enable this visit to occur.
Following her visit, Caterina, Jacqui Akhurst and a group of counselling psychology interns (currently doing their M2 year in the RU counselling centre) then travelled to Durban for the International Conference on Community Psychology, 27-30 May; presenting papers and three posters about their work.