CONSCIOUSNESS-RAISING, CONVERSION, AND DE-IDEOLOGIZATION IN COMMUNITYPSYCHOSOCIAL WORK

This paper describes a process for needs assessment in community psych osocial work and discusses its epistemological bases, stressing the im portance of felt needs and the process of dialogue that has to be gene rated between external researchers (i.e., those from outside the commu nity) and internal researchers (i.e., people in the community). The id eological influence that can arise from the contradiction between felt needs and normative needs is analyzed through examples from the autho r's research in a slum neighborhood in Caracas, Venezuela. That influe nce is countered by problematization, consciousness raising, and de-id eologization during the needs assessment process, also illustrated fro m circumstances which show the difference between perceiving and feeli ng a need. This procedure, nevertheless, does not provide a lasting so lution. Constant efforts are needed to maintain the process of conscio usness raising and to produce conversion as another cognitive process leading to the adoption of new points of view in the population. This counters the social pressure exerted on the community.