Psychology - Criticism - Critical Psychology

Critical Psychology

Critical psychology is a sub-discipline aimed at evaluating mainstream psychology and attempts to apply psychology in more progressive ways, often looking towards social change as a means of preventing and treating psychopathology. One of critical psychology's main objections to conventional psychology is that it ignores the way power differences between social classes and groups can affect the mental and physical well-being of individuals or groups of people. Contributors to the field include Klaus Holzkamp and Ian Parker. Key elements within critical psychology include the study of power relations, situated knowledge, and the dualisms of the self and the agency, and the individual and the social. A discursive strain of critical psychology was developed in the 1990s by Jonathan Potter and Derek Edwards. Discursive psychology examines how psychological phenomena are created, made relevant, and put to use in discourse, verbal interaction, and everyday talk. It is opposed to cognitivist approaches.