“Where is the love?” A radical integrated approach to contemporary working in Community

This paper offers an interdisciplinary perspective to those interested in humanistic psychology perspectives to love when working in communities. This includes for example community psychologists, psychotherapists, humanistic psychologists, youth workers, community development practitioners and allied health professionals. It offers the opportunity to reflect on how love manifests as an element of practice. Emphasising the place of love within practice and how ‘professional love’ enhances relational working. Through engaging in psychological, sociological and philosophical debate, we offer a framework, within which transferable skills, knowledge and approaches can be utilised to further radicalise contemporary work within communities. Furthermore, this paper clarifies the potentiality for therapeutic and sociological disciplines to contribute critique, with the golden thread throughout of professional love and ethics as a foundation of practice. Radical love seeks to encourage the practitioner to have courage to work through their own prejudice and privilege. This enables them to work with relational depth and embrace the underlying philosophical assumptions of humanistic psychology. In conclusion, recommendations are given which inform the reader of the possibility of social change, empowerment of communities and demonstrate how love in professional practice offers a shift in relational power, thus highlighting a radical, integrated approach to contemporary community work.