Handbook of Critical Psychology

1. Introduction, Ian Parker. Part I: Varieties of Psychology and Critique: Part 1a: The Mainstream. 2. Quantitative Methods: Science Means and Ends, Lisa Cosgrove, Emily E. Wheeler and Elena Kosterina. 3. Cognitive Psychology: From the Bourgeois Individual to Class Struggle, Michael Arfken. 4. Behaviourisms: Radical Behaviourism and Critical Inquiry, Maria R. Ruiz. 5. Emotion: Being Moved Beyond the Mainstream, Paul Stenner. 6. Biological and Evolutionary Psychologies: The Limits of Critical Psychology, John Cromby. 7. Personality: Technology, Commodity and Pathology, China Mills. 8. Developmental Psychology: The Turn to Deconstruction, Erica Burman. 9. Social Psychology: A Commentary on Organizational Research, Parisa Dashtipour. 10. Abnormal Psychology: A Psychology of Disorders, Susana Seidmann and Jorgelina Di Iorio. 11. Forensic Psychology: Clinical and Critical, Sam Warner. Part Ib: Radical Attempts to Question the Mainstream. 12. Qualitative Methods: Critical Practices and Prospects from a Diverse Field, Brendan Gough. 13. Theoretical Psychology: A Critical-Philosophical Outline of Core Issues, Thomas Teo. 14. Humanistic Psychology: A Critical Counter Culture, Keith Tudor. 15. Political Psychology: Critical Approaches to Power, Maritza Montero. 16. Community Psychology: Subjectivity, Power, Collectivity, David Fryer and Rachael Fox. 17. Organizational Psychology and Social Issues: The Place of the Place, Mary Jane Paris Spink and Peter Kevin Spink. 18. Counselling Psychology: Critical Achievements, Possibilities and Limitations, Richard House and Colin Feltham. 19. Health Psychology: Towards Critical Psychologies for Well-Being and Social Justice, Yasuhiro Igarashi. 20. Black Psychology: Resistance, Reclamation and Redefinition, Garth Stevens. 21. Psychology of Women: Questions of Politics and Practice, Rose Capdevila and Lisa Lazard. 22. From 'Lesbian and Gay Psychology' to a Critical Psychology of Sexualities, Pam Alldred and Nick Fox. Part Ic: Adjacent Parts of Psy-Complex. 23. Alienists and Alienation: Critical Psychiatry in Search of Itself, Janice Haaken. 24. Psychotherapists: Agents of Change or Maintenance Men? Ole Jacob Madsen. 25. Education, Psychology: Change at Last? Tom Billington and Tony Williams. 26. Social Work: Oppression and Resistance, Suryia Nayak. 27. Self-Help: and Pop Psychology, Jan De Vos. Part II: Varieties of Critical Psychology. 28. Activity Theory: Theory and Practice, Manolis Dafermos. 29. Marxist Psychology and Dialectical Method, Mohamed Elhammoumi. 30. Kritische Psychologie: Psychology from the Standpoint of the Subject, Johanna Motzkau and Ernst Schraube. 31. Does Psychoanalysis Have Anything to Say to Critical Psychology? Kareen Ror Malone with Emaline Friedman. 32. Deconstruction: The Foundations of Critical Psychology, Andrew Clark and Alexa Hepburn. 33. Deleuzian Perspectives: Schizoanalysis and the Politics of Desire, Hans Skott-Myhre. 34. Discursive Psychology: Key Tenets, Some Splits and Two Examples, Margaret Wetherell. Part III: Standpoints and Perspectives on Psychology and Critical Psychology: Part IIIa: Perspectives. 35. Feminist Psychology: Researches, Interventions, Challenges, Amana Mattos. 36. Queer Theory: Disarticulating Critical Psychology, Miguel Rosello Penaloza and Teresa Cabruja Ubach. 37. Liberation Psychology: Another Kind of Critical Psychology, Mark Burton and Luis Gomez. 38. Indigenous Psychologies and Critical-Emancipatory Psychology, Narcisa Paredes-Canilao, Ma. Ana Babaran-Diaz, Ma. Nancy B. Florendo and Tala Salinas-Ramos with S. Lily Mendoza. 39. Postcolonial Theory: Towards a Worlding of Critical Psychology, Desmond Painter. 40. From Critical Disability Studies to Critical Global Disability Studies, Shaun Grech. 41. A Politically Informed Immanent Spirituality for Critical Psychology, Kathleen S.G. Skott-Myhre. Part IIIb: Places. 42. Critical Psychology in Africa: The Impossible Task, Ingrid Palmary and Brendon Barnes. 43. Political Psychology and the American Continent: From Colonization and Domination to Liberation and Emancipation, Raquel S.L. Guzzo. 44. Critical Psychology in the Arab World: Insights from Critical Community Psychology in the Palestinian Colonial Context, Ibrahim Makkawi. 45. 'Critical Psychology in Asia': Four Fundamental Concepts, Anup Dhar. 46. European Critical Psychological Trends: An Open Road to Psychological Recidivism, Angel J. Gordo Lopez and Roberto Rodriguez Lopez. 47. South Pacific: Tensions of Space in Our Place, Leigh Coombes and Mandy Morgan.
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"The essays take aim at diverse areas of psychology, arguing for an approach focusing on the social context, often within a social justice framework. A recurring theme is that reductionistic models fail to capture the essence of human thought and behavior because the assumptions made in traditional psychological thinking lead to research methodologies that force measurement into constrained pathways that--the book argues--reflect social constructs rather than fundamentally important human characteristics. This book reflects critical psychology theories, showing little overlap with mainstream, empirical psychological thinking. Those interested in a depicition of the theory of critical psychology rather than an empirical treatment of psychological phenomena will encounter here a wide ranging exploration of the issues. Summing Up: Recommended." -B. C. Beins, Ithaca College, CHOICE


"It would appear that recency of research and a wider array of topics separate this book from the others. This book significantly builds on the work of its predecessors. The aim of this edited handbook is to provide a comprehensive overview of critical psychology in many fields in psychology. [...] The contents of this book have much to stir some readers out of their comfort zones, particularly those who have not been introduced to critical psychology. Taken-for-granted perspectives and terminology in psychology are forcefully questioned throughout the book. These include, among many others, personality, emotions, identities, sexuality, health, cognition, power, and education. Through questioning and offering alternatives, this book succeeds in enabling one to reconsider the seemingly obvious in psychology, thus potentially opening creative possibilities for research and practice." -Graham B. Stead, College of Education and Human Services at Cleveland State University, PsycCRITIQUES


"Ian Parker boldly states his hopes for The Handbook of Critical Psychology in the introduction: to provide the most thorough account possible of the scope of critical psychology. This ambitious project is tackled admirably." - Tom Payne, The Journal of Critical Psychology, Counselling and Psychotherapy


"This handbook does an incredible job of conveying the fundamentals of critical psychology along with an exciting overview of the contemporary scope of this revolutionary approach. Both specialists and students will consider it an essential resource. I will not be surprised if it significantly magnifies the impact of critical psychology around the world.'
- Tod Sloan, Lewis and Clark College, USA


"A critical engagement with key topics in psychology with reference to critical debates across the field. A crucial resource for all psychology students."
- Valerie Walkerdine, School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, UK


"Parker's Handbook of Critical Psychology is in one sense a book committed to overcoming the alienated character of modular work in the social sciences. By bringing together an assemblage of perspectives from remote disciplinary groupings, the compendium exemplifies an intellectual orientation that rejects the condition of functional separateness in the universe of academic knowledge production. Its declared target is the gamut of ideas, frameworks and activities which belong to mainstream "psychology" - as a (notoriously venal) academic discipline, (sometimes dehumanizing) professional practice, and (unavoidably value-laden) every day, commonsensical resource. And indeed, what emerges from the combined efforts of its contributors is nothing less than a bold and extensive critique, and sometimes revision, of the discipline on multiple fronts."
- Raphael Mackintosh, Psychology in Society
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Ian Parker was co-founder and is co-director of the Discourse Unit (www.discourseunit.com), and is Professor of Management at the University of Leicester, and Managing Editor of the Annual Review of Critical Psychology. He edited the four-volume Major Work Critical Psychology for Routledge in 2011, edits the book series Concepts for Critical Psychology, and also authored the Psychology after Critique series.
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