This book explores the concept of ¿socially-responsible psychology in a global age¿ and how it might be used to organize, integrate and bring enhanced focus a field that has the potential to contribute to solutions to the world¿s most pressing problems. In this volume, the editors explore the central and defining features of socially-responsible psychology, challenges that this work would face, and the mechanisms and processes by which psychological work could be synergistically integrated with the work of other disciplines.  For this purpose, the volume also examines a variety of factors currently that limit psychology in carrying out this goal.

Elena Mustakova-Possardt, Ed.D., LPC, is an independent scholar and developmental psychologist in clinical practice in Arlington, VA. Former tenured Associate Professor of Psychology at University of West Georgia, she has published, lectured and taught widely, in cultures as diverse as Switzerland, Zimbabwe, United Arab Emirates, Bulgaria, and the U.S. She works with diverse forms of oppression worldwide and explores paths to cultivating an emancipated and truly liberated consciousness. Her re-thinking of moral development won the 1995 Dissertation Award of the Henry A. Murray Research Center for the Study of Lives at Harvard University, and the 1998 Outstanding Dissertation Award of the Association for Moral Education. Her book Ontogeny of Critical Consciousness: Study of Morality in a Global Age (Greenwood/Praeger 2003) was also published in Bulgarian (Sofia University Press 2004).  Her cross-cultural community development work with Latino immigrants won the Carter Award for Campus and Community Initiatives. She can be reached at elena.mustakova@gmail.com or at www.elenamustakova.net.

Mikhail Lyubansky,
Ph.D., is a member of the teaching faculty in the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where, among other courses, he teaches Psychology of Race and Ethnicity and a graduate-level restorative justice practicum based at a youth detention center. Since 2009, he has been a practitioner of Restorative Circles, a restorative practice developed in Brazil. In addition, Mikhail also has a long-standing interest in race and racial dynamics and writes a blog about race for Psychology Today called Between the Lines. Born in Kiev, Mikhail immigrated to the United States with his family as a child in 1977. He currently lives in Urbana, IL with his wife and two children, ages 5 and 10. He can be reached at Lyubanskym@gmail.com.

Michael Basseches, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Psychology, Suffolk University, is a life-span developmental and clinical psychologist whose academic and professional work has been devoted to conflict resolution. He has practiced psychotherapy since 1985.  He has published two books, Dialectical Thinking and Adult Development (Ablex, 1984), and (with Mascolo) Psychotherapy as a Developmental Process (Routledge, 2010). Michael has also taught on the faculties of Swarthmore College, Cornell University and Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology. Born in New York City, he is married to Angela Brandão, and has two sons, Joshua and Benjamin Basseches. He can be reached at mbasseches@gmail.com.

Julie Oxenberg, Ph.D., MALD, is a clinical psychologist with a master's degree in International Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.  She is co-founder of Spiritual Psychology Associates, and serves on the Advisory Board of the Center for Psychotherapy and Spirituality at the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology (MSPP). Founding member of the Psychology of Peace Initiative at MSPP, she has served on the New England and National Advisory Boards of the Tikkun Community associated with Tikkun Magazine. Julie is involved in several intercultural dialogue and conflict transformation procedures, including Beyond Words, an Israeli-Palestinian organization working with women in the Middle East, One by One, a Berlin-based organization working with dialogue processes between descendants of Holocaust survivors and descendants of Nazis, and the Public Conversations Project in Boston, MA. She can be reached at Julieoxenberg@gmail.com.

Part I: Central dimensions of rethinking a socially responsible psychology for a global era.- Focusing psychology on the global challenge: Achieving a sustainable future.- Psychology, Culture and a Global Perspective.- Key Global Documents that Provide the Ethical Underpinnings and Guiding Moral Vision for This Volume.- A Vision of Psychology in an Explicit Normative Context.-  Toward a Psychological Science of Globalization, A Global Community Psychology.- Transforming a limited social function into a viable global action agenda.- A Historical Perspective.- Guiding Prevalent Assumptions and Contemporary Psychology.- Psychological Impact of Prevailing and Unexamined Guiding Assumptions.- Beyond Prevailing Assumptions: Developing a Global Action Agenda.- Practices of Psychological Inquiry: The Global Challenge.- From Empiricist Foundations to Social Epistemology.- Socially Responsible Inquiry.- Psychology and Global Impact: A Collective Delusion?.- In Conclusion: Recommendations.- Toward socially responsible clinical practice suited to the needs of global community.- Global Community Psychology: Becoming Counselors of the World.- Central Values and Priorities Underlying Current Western Clinical Training and Practice.- Morality, Moral Relativism, and Psychotherapy.- Psychotherapy and the Cost of War.- Tension Between Current Clinical Values and Priorities and the Core Values Articulated in the UDHR and the Earth Charter.- Some Recent Developments Toward Global Maturity in Clinical Practice.- Systemic and Policy Shifts Needed to Enhance Social and Global Responsibility in Clinical Practice.- Conclusion and Recommendations.- Toward Social Health for a Global Community.-Parallel Global Processes: Fragmentation of Human Consciousness and Society, and Global Unification Around Issues of Social Justice.- Early Understanding of Social Health.- First Systemic Approach to Social Health: Erich Fromm.- Toward a Complex Systems Approach to Social Health.- The Need for Balance of Love, Reason, and Faith in Human Affairs.- Emerging Possible Early Definition of Social Health.- Social Health As A Process of Unity in Diversity.- Summary and Conclusions.- Toward Cultivating Socially Responsible Global Consciousness.- Developmental Reconstructions of Self-Identity.- Consciousness as a Focal Point of Psychological Study.- Centrality of Moral Character and Choice in Development.- Further Role for Psychology and Psychologists in Promoting the Growth and Transformation of Consciousness.- Part II: Pressing Global Issues.- Toward a Psychology of Nonviolence.- Definitions.- Ontological Assumptions.- Effectiveness vs. Fruitfulness of Nonviolent Civil Resistance.- Psychology and the Military.- A Conceptual Framework.- Future Psychological Directions.- Toward Racial Justice.- The Racial Perceptual Divide.- The Racial Reality of Policing Practices.- The Criminal In-Justice System.- Contemporary Racism.- The Sociopolitical Context.- Moving Toward Equity and Justice.- Recommendations.- Overcoming Discrimination, Persecution, and Violence Against Women.- Oppression.- The Relational Self.- Challenging Silence: The Importance of Counter-Narratives to Gender Ideologies.- Conclusions and Further Recommendations.- Poor People, Poor Planet: The Psychology of How We Harm and Heal Hummanity and Earth.- The Role of Psychological Processes in Economic Justice and Socio-Environmental Sustainability.- The Centrality of Poverty in Economic Growth, Environmental Decline, and Community Suffering.- The Moral, Psychological and Environmental Dilemma of Poverty.- Changing the Structures Underlying Poverty and Environmental Harm.- What Psychology Can Do to Deter Our Harmful Ways.- Where There is Psychology is There Hope?.- Processes in the Development of Individual and Collective Consciousness and the Role of Religious and Spiritual Communities.- Socially Responsible Psychology and the Development of Dialectical Thinking.- Social Contexts and Dialectical Praxis.- Socially Responsible Psychology and the Role of Religious and Spiritual Communities.- Spiritual Ethic for Global Governance: Interreligious Efforts.- Toward the Integration of Materialistic and Spiritual Ontologies, Epistemologies, and Praxiologies in the Quest for a Common Foundation.