Toward a Critical Community Psychological Perspective on Unemployment and Mental Health Research

Psychological research has established that unemployment causes widespread psychological distress and ill health in communities but, arguably, little of this research is truly community psychological. In this paper we sketch out a critical community psychological perspective and use it to contribute to understanding of the role of psychosocial aspects of income in the experience and mental health of employed and unemployed members of low-income families in a severely deprived community context; to the development of innovative participatory methodology, and to promote the interests of impoverished unemployed people through the research process as well as through the research outcome.