Book Reviews

Critical Psychology: An Introduction

FOX, D. AND PRILLELTENSKY, I. (1997).Sage, London: pp. xvii � 362. £47.50 ISBN 0-7619-5210-1 (hardback), £15.99ISBN 0-7619-5211-X (paperback).

I opened this book as a ®nal year undergraduate student disillusioned with mainstreamscienti®c psychology, looking for a psychology which has relevance outside academia, whichspurns empty intellectualist rhetoric and which avoids hypocrisy in its theory and practice. Iwas looking for a psychology which could explain, criticize and empower. The opening chapterof this book made me optimistic that here at last I had found one.In the opening chapter, the editors openly trace their interest in critical psychology to their

own, contrasting, experiences of social injustice and oppressive regimes. This introductionthrough the lives of the editors is a nice touch, absent from many texts but true to criticalpsychology's assumption that subjective re¯ection is an inescapable and indeed necessarycomponent part of all psychology. The implicit humility also fends o� the hypocrisy fromwhich critical psychology is always at risk and persuades the reader that the critical psychologyapproach presents an opportunity to escape the bigotry, narrow-mindedness and elitism whichhe/she might have experienced in other branches.Following chapters critically examine mainstream topics such as personality, intelligence

research, developmental, community and social psychology, as well as less prominentapproaches such as cross-cultural, discursive, political and feminist perspective psychology.The latter is prominently represented, perhaps over-represented, in the book but Wilkinson'sremarkable analysis of the patriarchal nature of mainstream psychology and Kitzinger'sexploration of the limits of equality in psychology deserve special mention. Kitzinger'ssuggestion that gay/lesbian psychology oversells its supposedly radical departure, masking itsa�liation to the mainstream, bravely pushes the boundaries of ®eld-speci®c critical psychologyin exactly the direction which endears the reader to her cause.Overall, the writing is uneven and sometimes regresses from critical discourse to sel®sh soap-

boxing of a particular branch of psychology. Some contributors seem to feel mainstreampsychology weighing so heavily on their shoulders that they fall helplessly into promotion oftheir own ®eld at the earliest available opportunity.The Editors' decision to provide a brief summary at the start of each chapter, informing the

reader of the hot topics and impending issues which will be found therein, sometimes providevaluable insights into the chapter, aiding comprehension and preparing the reader for what isto come. Sometimes, however, it is unclear where the Editors' Note ends and the actual chapterbegins, and on occasions the vigorous summarizing of others' work seems to demean whatthey have written.Nightingale and Neilands devote their contribution to an examination of the practice of

critical psychology, explaining common terms and factions and suggesting ways in whichrhetoric can become practice. Their chapter reads more like an instruction manual than acritique but in the context of other contributions, this is no bad thing. After this chapter therest of the book reads more easily and it could usefully have been positioned towards thebeginning of the book.Pancer's contribution on social psychology is also worthy of special mention. His argument,

that social psychology must re-establish itself again as a vanguard of welfare and positivesocietal change, is a model of comprehensive structure and ¯uid style, living up to the book'sclaims of accessibility.

CCC 1052±9284/99/030243±03$17.50Copyright # 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Journal of Community & Applied Social PsychologyJ. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol. 9: 243±245 (1999)

Nothing prepares the audience for Rappaport and Stewart's invigoratingly critical appraisalof the text itself. How carefully they tread the line that Fox and Prilleltensky had intended forthe whole book! They have written what is probably the clearest and least rhetorical chapter ofthe entire volume. They begin by giving a concise account of critical psychology and manage tosay more in eight pages than other contributors have said in whole chapters. They fully, andyet brie¯y and comprehensively, address the irony of critical psychology's bizarre relationshipwith mainstream psychology:

Its way of thinking cannot in itself become the dominant way of thinking. The momentany idea wins (becomes the way things are thought about or practised by most membersof a discipline or profession), that idea becomes the enemy of a critical psychologyÐthatis, it becomes the status quo to which one is expected to adjust and the role relationshipthat becomes institutionalized (Rappaport and Stewart, p. 305).

They then move on (as requested by the Editors) to a critique of the preceding chapters in anastounding mixture of blatant criticism, wary praise, precise deconstruction and wickedly drywit.A primary aim of the book is to provide an accessible introduction to critical psychology,

avoiding fruitless intellectualism. The contributors have steered away from presenting theirmaterial as experts but the complexities of the ®eld necessarily result in fairly heavy reading.This is not a book for newcomers to psychology, as it draws upon sub-disciplines with whichfamiliarity is assumed. Indeed, it would be di�cult to be critical of a science of which one hadno experience. I recommend the book to ®nal year students or post-graduates who might ®ndit useful and intriguing to view the psychological world without donning the rose-tintedspectacles of their mainstream mentors.

BEN ANDERSON

benster67@aol.com

Ben Anderson graduated from Stirling University in the summer of 1998 with an HonoursDegree in Psychology and intends to continue as a community psychologist by teachingchemistry at secondary school level.

Culture of Fear: Risk-tasking and the Morality of Low Expectation

FUREDI F. (1997).Cassell, London and Washington: pp. 184. £45.00 ISBN 0-304-33750±1 (hardback), £12.99ISBN 0-304-33751-X (paperback).

The 1990s have been described as an unnervingly safe decade. In this provocative book, Furedi(Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Kent) cuts across political and ideological divides inhis attempt to unravel the causes and consequences of what he describes as society's increasing,and damaging, fear of taking risks. He asserts that as a society we are obsessed with safety(seeing everywhere abuse, stranger danger, disease and environmental damage), with avoid-ance of risk being taken as a self-evident good, regardless of how rational or irrational the fearsunderpinning the avoidance and irrespective of the probability of harm.In support of his contention that risk sensitivity is increasing, Furedi quotes a study which

showed that the number of articles on ``risk'' in medical journals in the UK, Scandinaviaand the USA jumped from 1000 to 80,000 during the ®rst and last ®ve years of the period1967±1991. He argues that we systematically over-in¯ate risk and amplify dangers, citing foodscares (BSE, Listeria), environmental concerns (pollution, global warming), impact of tech-nology (genetic engineering, biomedicine) and crime (abuse, assault) as examples where ourpreoccupation is far in excess of the actual risks. It is ironic, he suggests, that in real terms wehave actually never been safer than we are today, and that we pay proportionally much greaterattention to safety issues than to more justi®ed concerns about the impact of poverty, poornutrition and social inequalities.Furedi's documentation of risk sensitivity is confusing in its broad range. I feel he weakens

his argument by failing to di�erentiate between individual and collective concerns, by making

244 Book Reviews

Copyright # 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Community Appl. Soc. Psychol. 9: 243±245 (1999)