ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book presents an opportunity to examine, at both the macro and micro levels, one of the fields of psychology-community psychology. It provides examples to illustrate Thomas Kuhn's idea that the tradition-shattering complements the tradition-bound activity of normal science. The book examines the issue of paradigmatic conflicts with clinical and/or social psychology, vintage 1960s and 1970s, as a catalyst for their involvement in community psychology. It represents the stories of the community psychologists, about their development as community psychologists and how people, circumstances and events occurring at various times shaped their views about their academic identity. In each of their stories, there are references to personal choices, chance events, coincidence, and serendipity; constructs of primary interest to the late Robert Merton, the distinguished sociologist, but not always noted in published discussions of personal histories.
