Interview:
Critical Psychology and Social Struggles

Dennis Fox

November 2012

Meydan (Turkish anarchist magazine)
December 25, 2012 #6 pp. 14-15.

Email interview

Note: This version differs from the final Turkish version.

Questions

1. Describe to us your experience as an associate professor of legal studies & psychology and an anarchist (or at least a person who is inspired by the anarchism ideas). Do you find contradictory the fact that one who is "against" the law at the same time is teaching the law? Answer

2. What kind of role can psychology take in social changes and what is the aim of re-look in society with psychology?  Answer

3. Is psychology possible which cooperates with the resistance movements that struggle against state, economic and social violences ? Answer

4. What is Critical Psychology? Answer

5. How can critical psychology takes place in academy which criticise the mainstream perception that claims to be objective universal, and neutral?  Answer

6. Since psychological knowledge is very open to be manipulated by power groups is it useful or necessary to use this knowledge in the perspective of the oppressed ones? Answer

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Answers

1. We know that psychology discipline is related with the conditions and the power relationships as other disciplines. This situation helps power groups to continue and to reproduce their status. So, can a psychological approach help individuals that are oppressed by these power groups to free themselves ?

This is an important question. I think we need to distinguish between two meanings of “psychology.” When we talk about “the psychology discipline” we generally mean the profession, which includes clinical psychologists and research psychologists, as well as psychologists who work as consultants and other roles. As with any mainstream professional discipline, psychology as a discipline is very much an important part of maintaining power relations and sustaining the status quo. But “psychology” can also mean not the profession but the body of knowledge about human behavior. Psychologists have generated a lot of data about human behavior. Trying to understand how people act, why they act in certain ways, how to change the way people act - answering questions such as these has been part of human inquiry not just by psychologists but by philosophers, political theorists, and many other professions, and also by ordinary non-professionals who try to figure out why we do the things we do.  Although much of what mainstream psychology claims to understand is biased by status-quo interpretations, awareness of this kind of information can sometimes help individuals who are trying to overcome their oppression. Some psychologists, for example, have tried to learn more about how groups of people can become more effective, how they can try to persuade others to work together, to become aware of oppressive forces. So I think it can be useful in that way, especially when psychologists explicitly address issues of power and oppression from an activist position. A somewhat separate area has to do with psychotherapists and psychoanalysts who have incorporated specific radical critiques into their theory and practice. This focus, while always a small minority, has existed for more than a century, with psychologists working to understand fascism, for example, while also trying to help people overcome the internal consequences of living in repressive hierarchical society. While individual therapy cannot directly lead to political change, it can help individuals gain a better sense of what they are up against and figure out how to become more effective.

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2. What kind of role can psychology take in social changes and what is the aim of re-look in society with psychology?

3. Is  psychology possible which cooperates with the resistance movements that struggle against state, economic and social  violences? 

Yes, this is possible, as I've said above. For example, the Salvadoran social psychologist Ignacio Martín-Baró, who was also a Jesuit priest, used social psychological methods to demonstrate inequity and oppression in Central America in order to encourage change; as a result, he and other Jesuit priests were murdered by a government death squad in 1989. His work, generally described as liberation psychology, has been an influential model for psychologists looking to engage in resistance. More recently, groups of activist psychologists have tried to support various movements, though my impression is that most of this work is not connected enough to resistance movements. Psychologists tend to be middle-class career-minded professionals, for whom activism is not generally a high priority.

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4. What is Critical Psychology?

The term critical psychology refers to a range of philosophical, scientific, and political objections to the workings of the mainstream discipline of psychology. Critical psychologists generally identify mainstream psychology essentially as a political enterprise, in the sense that its accepted practices produce and disseminate particular forms of knowledge compatible with society's dominant power structures. Mainstram psychologists exhibit selective assumptions about what counts as relevant knowledge and how to obtain it, unjustified confidence that professional norms can ensure scientific objectivity, and misguided faith that such objectivity (if even possible to attain) frees the field of biases that sustain an unjust and unsatisfying status quo. In response, critics work to identify mainstream psychology's unacknowledged assumptions, demonstrate their impact on psychology and on the larger society, and propose alternative theoretical frameworks, research methods, and professional practices. I want to emphasize that one of the most difficult things to confront is the belief of most psychologists that their work is entirely apolitical - that they're just trying to help people. Indeed, most really are trying to help people. The problem is that their work often embraces assumptions they haven't fully considered, so that the kind of help they offer disproportionately encourages people to adapt to difficult circumstances rather than challenge them. As a consequence, millions of people learn to see systemic problems as merely “individual.”

5. How can critical psychology takes place in academy which criticise the mainstream perception that claims to be objective universal, and neutral?

This is an excellent question. In a sense, critical psychology - just the same as critical sociology, critical legal studies, and other variations of critical theory - is aimed directly at this mainstream faith in objective, universal, neutral “truth.” By trying to show how our science is shaped by our culture, our history, our values, critical theory challenges an essential component of the university's collaboration with mainstream power. This is a problem for critical psychologists especially because, compared to critical theoriests in other fields where systemic thinking is somewhat more common, in psychology the mainstream focuses obsessively on the individual separate from culture and histroy, as if these don't matter in explaining human behavior. So it should not be that surprising that critical psychologists have a much harder time making headway in the academic discipline than sociologists or anthropologists. I should point out that, to some extent, this difficulty is somewhat an advantage. If critical psychology does gain more ground in academe, then critical psychologists will have to focus more on traditional academic norms that stand in the way of radical collaborative work. If we fall victim to the “publish or perish” mania and worry more about finding jobs and getting promotions, much of our critical energy will be deflected.

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6. Since psychological knowledge is very open to be manipulated by power groups is it useful or necessary to use this knowledge in the perspective of the oppressed ones?

Psychological knowledge can be useful. But relying on it can be risky, since, as you suggest, it can be manipulated for elite ends. The point of critical psychology is to resist this tendency, to identity where it happens and to develop alternative understandings. But critical psychologists are a small minority. Mainstream psychologists are much more likely to see systemic problems as individual ones, thus de-politicizing analyses of how oppression is maintained and encouraging adaptation rather than resistance. Unfortunately, this individualizing tendency is Western psychology's primary method of deflecting resistance.

More

• Critical Psychology
• Psychology and Law
• Anarchism