Critical Psychology

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Critical Psychology Articles & Presentations

Fox's critiques of mainstream psychology's norms, organized psychology's political stances, and more.

• 2008. Critical Psychology Issues (conversation hour with Thomas Teo and Isaac Prilleltensky)
• 2008. Confronting Psychology's Power: Comment on Prilleltensky
• 2008. History and Trends of Critical Psychology in North America (with Tod Sloan and Stephanie Austin).
• 2007. Psychopolitical Literacy for Wellness and Justice (with Isaac Prilleltensky)
• 2007. Five Social Psychology Essentials
• 2006. The Development of North American Critical Psychology, Plus Questions About its Relevance to Israel
• 2005. Towards Transformative Social Interventions
• 2004. Interview: Critical Psychology and Antiauthoritarianism
• 2003. Awareness is Good, but Action is Better
• 2003. Expanding Critical Psychology's Challenge for Health and Justice
• 2002. The Suitability of Political Debate in Psychology
• 2002. Town Meeting Panel Discussion. Southeastern Ecological Community Conference: Social Justice and Social Change, Knoxville, TN. [Panelist]
• 2002. Wading through Quicksand: Between the Philosophically Desirable and the Psychologically Feasible (with Isaac Prilleltensky)
• 2000. The Critical Psychology Project: Transforming Society and Transforming Psychology (Chapter in Tod Sloan's excellent book, Critical Psychology: Voices for Change, which presents personalized accounts by critical psychologists of what we think made us the way we are and where we think critical psychology should be headed)
• 2001. Organizing Critical Psychologists: The RadPsyNet Experience
• 2001. Challenging Basic Assumptions: The (Potential) Value of Social Science Education.
• 1999. Psycholegal Scholarship's Contribution to False Consciousness About Injustice
• 1998. Comment on Reviews of Critical Psychology: An Introduction
• 1998. Sifting Critical Psychologies for Emancipation and Social Change
• 1998. RadPsyNet, Psychology, and Public Policy
• 1997. Introducing Critical Psychology: Values, Assumptions, and the Status Quo (with Isaac Prilleltensky)
• 1996. The Inescapable Nature of Politics in Psychology: A Response to O'Donohue and Dyslin (with Isaac Prilleltensky)
• 1995. Can the Radical Psychology Network's Critique Make SPSSI More Resilient?
• 1995. Radicalizing Organized Psychology: A Critical Issue for Empowerment and Social Change (with Isaac Prilleltensky)
• 1993. Psychological Jurisprudence and Radical Social Change
• 1993. Will Psychology Pay Attention to its Own Radical Critics? (with Isaac Prilleltensky)
• 1991. Social Science's Limited Role in Resolving Psycholegal Social Problems
• 1985. Psychology, Ideology, Utopia, and the Commons.
• 1985. Achieving Ideological Change Within Psychology
• 1984. Psychology and Controversy: Points for Discussion
• 1984. Need to Re-evaluate Ideologies

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Courses I've taught...

...incorporate critical perspectives on psychology as well as on law and society.

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Reading Suggestions

• Critical Psychology Articles Published in the American Psychologist
• Psychology and the Status Quo (general)
• Education, Training, Research, & Publication
• Human Nature, Human Origins, & Personality
• Family, Sex Roles, Feminism, Developmental Psychology
• Mental Disorder, Disability, & the Therapeutic State
• Societal Trends (Technology, Community, Individualism, Inequality, Corporations, more)
• Anarchism
• Tragedy of the Commons
• Environment, Communalism, & Utopia
• Power, Oppression, Law, & Social Change

The Radical Psychology Network is an international organization of radical/critical/progressive psychologists and others. I co-founded the group and remain on the coordinating committee. The website includes position papers, policy statements, and more. We also have an e-mail discussion list.

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Critical Psychology Teaching Materials

Materials on the RadPsyNet site include syllabi, reading lists, etc.

Studying Critical Psychology

General information and advice about studying critical psychology.

Only a few graduate programs open to one form or another of critical psychology are listed here.
The UK Discourse Unit has a longer list of options around the world.

If you're looking for undergraduate departments, start by looking at schools with related grad programs.

Universities in the US (interesting but not explicitly defined as "critical" - so ask questions!)

• Vanderbilt University's Peabody College has a PhD program in Community Research and Action. This is no longer strictly a community psychology program.
• Duquesne Univerity has a PhD program in clinical psychology, with an emphasis on "psychology as a positive response to the challenges of the 21st century -- a response which includes existentialism, phenomenology, hermeneutics, depth psychology, feminism, critical theory and post-structuralism." Its undergraduate BA degree emphasizes "psychology conceived as a human science."
• University of California-Santa Cruz says its social psychology PhD program focuses on social justice.
• New College of California in San Francisco has feminist-clinical and social-clinical masters degree focuses.
• Pacifica Graduate Institute's Community/Ecological Fieldwork and Research program: "The Depth Psychology M.A./Ph.D. Program seeks to place the study of depth and liberation psychologies in dynamic relationship with the cultural issues of our time."
• University of West Georgia's Psy.D. Program in Individual, Organizational and Community Transformation has the subitle A Program in Consciousness and Society. Includes "critical" among its perspectives.
• University of Tennessee Center for Applied Phenomenological Research.

Non-US Degree Programs

• Master of Science in Critical Psychology (Bolton Institute, United Kingdom - distance learning)
• Master of Science in Critical Psychology in the Social Sciences (Cardiff University, Wales)
• Master of Science in Psychology and Society (University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa)

Other Non-US Programs

• Critical Psychology Research Group (University of the West of England, Bristol)
• Discourse Unit - UK Centre for Qualitative and Theoretical Research on the Reproduction and Transformation of Language, Subjectivity and Practice (Manchester Metropolitan University). "The MSc Psychology programme and PhD programme enables students to develop a 'critical' work which may or may not be explicitly directed to issues in psychology."

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Critical Psychology Links

• Discourse Unit (UK) links, resources, courses, reading materials, more
• RadPsyNet links page -- links to many more resources than the ones I repeat here
• Community Psychology UK
• Proyecto de Psicología Crítica
• Initiative Critical Psychology (Vienna) - "Forum for the Critical Analysis of Psychology, Dominace, Patriarchy, Ideology . . ."
• International Society for Theoretical Psychology
• Activism & Psychology (Rachelle Thibodeau's Directory--groups, bibliogaphies, more)
• Ignacio Martín-Baró Fund for Mental Health and Human Rights
• Psychologists for Social Responsibility
• Crítica (Ricardo Gonsalves' gateway to critical sites--psychology, pedagogy, theory, more)
• Entelechy: Mind & Culture
• Critical Psychology Teaching Materials (on the RadPsyNet site)
• Critical Psychology Blog/South Africa: Desmond Painter & Martin Terre Blanche
• Dennis Fox's Weblog (mine!)
• Monterey Declaration of Critical Community Psychology
• Fireflies in the Shadow of the Sun (fiction and activism against academic psychology)
• Google Search for "critical psychology"
• Critical Psychology Journals
  • Radical Psychology Journal (RadPsyNet's online journal)
  • Subjectivity (formerly International Journal of Critical Psychology)
  • Annual Review of Critical Psychology
  • Theory and Psychology
  • Journal for Social Action in Counseling and Psychology