Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology Thomas Teo Editor Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology With 13 Figures and 2 Tables Editor Thomas Teo Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON, Canada ISBN 978-1-4614-5582-0 ISBN 978-1-4614-5583-7 (eBook) ISBN 978-1-4614-5584-4 (print and electronic bundle) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-5583-7 Springer New York Heidelberg Dordrecht London Library of Congress Control Number: 2014931655 # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. 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While the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication, neither the authors nor the editors nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any errors or omissions that may be made. The publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) ... mit dem kategorischen Imperativ, alle Verhaltnisse€ umzuwerfen, in denen der Mensch ein erniedrigtes, ein geknechtetes, ein verlassenes, ein verachtliches€ Wesen ist ... Preface No perspicuous definition of critical psychology currently exists. For some psychologists, critical psychology is about analyzing psychology in the context of power, including the power that psychology, as a discipline and as a practice, exerts in the process of subjectification. For others, critical psychology is about acknowledging and analyzing the embeddedness of human mental life or subjectivity, and their conceptualizations, in larger structures such as society, history, or culture. Still others have argued that critical psychology is principally a practice or that psychologists should give primacy to praxis over theory, whereby the term is understood in the context of emancipation, liberation, or resistance. Some have argued that critical psychology is about deconstructing mainstream psychology while providing new and better alternative concepts, theories, and practices. Again, others have argued that critical psychology, as a human science and profession, should be guided specifically by the values of social justice, equality, solidarity, and liberty. Some have even argued that critical psychology is about decolonizing traditional psychology and challenging the status quo. I do not even attempt to provide a conclusive definition of critical psychol- ogy, but would rather suggest that an encyclopedia of critical psychology needs to cast a net as wide as possible around what critically psychology may entail. Indeed, the entries in this encyclopedia are a testimony to the variety of understandings of what critical could mean. Represented here are approaches that include phenomenology and hermeneutics, Marxism, feminism, social constructionism, anti-psychiatry, anarchism, critical theory, chaos theory, critical race and disability theory, queer theory, radical community psychol- ogy, psychoanalysis, poststructuralism, postcolonial theory, and other non-mainstream approaches. As it is often the case with approaches whose identities are marginal and hybrid, I am certain that some critical psychologists would have liked to exclude or re-write other critical psychologists’ entries, or to have seen additional entries. Certainly, such exclusionary and inclusionary intentions emerge from this heterogeneous area that we call critical psychology. To the best of my knowledge, the Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology is the first English-language encyclopedia that focuses on concepts, theories, and practices that reflect various critical traditions while providing analytical evaluations of traditional as well as critical ideas. The structure of the encyclopedia reflects this notion when traditional and critical debates on a specific subject matter or topic are compared and contrasted. Longer entries vii viii Preface in the work include the history as well as the meaning of a psychological term in an international and practical context. Reflection on the meaning or relevance of a term in a global context forces the author, and the reader, to move beyond their own theoretical-geographical borders. I believe that this requirement, to reach beyond one’s own frameworks, was a difficult one to fulfil for some authors. Equally difficult was it for theory-oriented critical psychologists to reflect on the meaning of their analyses for praxis, even in its widest meaning. This ground-breaking encyclopedia, which has attempted to include a range of critical traditions, geographical regions, and as many relevant terms as possible, could however be improved in multiple ways. For instance, language remains an important barrier for a wide variety of international contributions, and English-speaking authors were thus privileged. Doing perfect justice to all the problems that we encountered when committing to the internationalization of (critical) psychology, as well as to the varieties of critical psychology and to the vast array of terms that demand critical assessment, would have required more time and space. I hope we will be able to remedy such lacunae in future editions, but I believe that the present edition will be helpful to psychologists as well as human and social scientists more broadly. Indeed, the encyclopedia provides a systematic voice for critical psychologists from around the world when looking comprehensively at psychological topics from critical points of view. Finally, I should mention that it was challenging to commit authors to follow a pre-arranged structure, which was intended to provide coherence and improve readability for students and academics alike. The very nature of critical psychology as a challenge to the status quo was turned against the idea of producing a structured discussion of psychological terms. Such an intuitive reaction, sometimes justified through reason, required coaching and appeals to solidarity to overcome. Still, some entries did not follow the structure completely. I do not necessarily consider this a weakness but a reality that reflects the complexity and variety of critical thinking and critical personalities in psychology. December 2013 Thomas Teo Toronto, ON, Canada Acknowledgments I would like to thank the following project managers at York University, and particularly Zhipeng Gao, without whose active management and leadership this project would not have been possible: Marissa E. Barnes Patric Plesa York University York University Toronto, ON Toronto, ON Canada Canada Zhipeng Gao Raha Sheivari York University York University Toronto, ON Toronto, ON Canada Canada Mathis Kaiser Ben Zabinski University of Konstanz York University Konstanz Toronto, ON Germany Canada I would also like to express my sincere appreciation for the special contribu- tions of the following academics toward the publication of this title: Jacob A. Belzen Anne-Nelly Perret-Clermont University of Amsterdam Institute of Psychology and Amsterdam Education The Netherlands Faculty of Humanities Luciano Mecacci University of Neuchaˆtel Department of Psychology Neuchaˆtel University of Florence Switzerland Firenze Paul Stenner Italy Department of Psychology China Mills Faculty of Social Sciences Oxford Poverty and Human The Open University Development Initiative (OPHI) Milton Keynes Oxford Department of International UK Development University of Oxford Oxford UK ix x Acknowledgments I am thankful to the editorial advisory board members who upheld the quality of the entries. I would also like to thank Sharon Panulla and Michael Hermann from Springer in New York, the publisher’s staff in India, and particularly Abhijit Baroi for their effective organizational work on this project and for making this extraordinary encyclopedia possible. Finally, my gratitude belongs to Dr. Angela Febbraro and Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) for their ongoing support of my research projects. December 2013 Thomas Teo About the Editor Thomas Teo Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada Thomas Teo is professor and a member of the History and Theory of Psychology Graduate Program in the Department of Psychology at York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He is the current