Guest Editorial: Critical Psychology JANE M. USSHER AND VALERIE WALKERDINE

University of Western Sydney

e are delighted to have been invited to edit this special edition, which arose from the Millennium W World Conference in Critical Psychology, hosted

by the Centre for Critical Psychology, at the University of Western Sydney in 1999. This was an occasion where over 300 academics came from all over the world to discuss their research and mark the establishment of this rapidly develop- ing field. The aim of this special edition is to make a selec- tion of this critical psychological work available to a broader audience, and to provide a point of critical engage- ment that we hope will further dialogue and debate.

Although it is a term that may be unfamiliar to some readers, critical psychology is really an umbrella term that represents a diverse range of bodies of work that have long existed, but have often been found only in the margins of psychology departments. Nowadays, however, there is more force to debates about psychology as an enterprise of modernity, and voices from the margins are entering the mainstream. At the same time, sub-departments of critical psychology, at the University of Western Sydney, Berlin University, and Manchester Metropolitan University are developing MA and PhD programs, adding to the options of study open to psychology students, and complementing existing academic and professional programs.

Central to critical psychological research, scholarship, teaching, and professional practice is the analysis of subjec- tivity and self-hood, and a recognition of the cultural, politi- cal, and historical factors that shape experience. Critical psychology now spans the whole spectrum of psychology as a discipline, including developmental (Bradley, 1989; Burman, 1994; Walkerdine, 1990), social (Parker, 1992; Potter & Wetherell, 1987), personality (Sloan, 1997), clini- cal (Pilgrim, 1992; Ussher, 1991), cognitive (Richardson, 1992; Wilson, 1996), community (Prilleltensky & Nelson, 1997), cultural (Squire, 2000), gender (Ussher, 1997; Walkerdine, 1997), and legal psychology (Fox, 1997). What unites these different groups of psychologists is their approach: there is a questioning of the taken-for-granted assumptions made about both psychology as a science, psychologists as scientist-practitioners, and the methodolo- gies that are appropriate for investigation of research questions. Empirical research in critical psychology is rarely conducted from a positivist-realist epistemological stand- point; instead, a range of epistemological standpoints are

adopted, including critical-realist, feminist, social-construc- tionist, postmodernist, poststructuralist, material-discursive, and psychoanalytic. The research methodologies that are adopted stand in contrast to the hypothetico-deductive or experimental methodologies traditionally used in psychol- ogy. These include a range of qualitative methods - inter- views, focus groups, video diaries, narrative accounts, textual analysis, Q sorts, repertory grids, or observational methods - and a range of different analytical techniques, including discourse analysis, narrative analysis, conversa- tional analysis, and advanced statistical analysis. Whilst critical psychologists may use traditional methodologies if they are appropriate for the research questions under study, these are used sceptically (Bhaskar, 1989), and the findings of such research are not given a higher status than those obtained through alternative methods, such as those obtained through qualitative research. Equally, as critical psychology is inherently reflexive, the implications of adopting a particular epistemological standpoint and a particular set of methodologies and methods are always at the forefront of the agenda. Critical psychologists are as critical of their own work as they are of the work of others.

In critical psychology, there is attention to issues of ethics, power, values, and ideology in both research and professional practice. In professional practice, the implica- tions of psychological assessment and intervention for both the individual and for society as a whole are at the forefront of the agenda. The need for psychological services is acknowledged, but the role of the service user in their devel- opment and delivery is emphasised more strongly than is often the case, and there is more attention to the develop- ment of innovative methods of working that allow for the incorporation of issues of culture, class, gender, and ethnic- ity into the professional agenda.

The papers in this issue reflect these themes. They represent a selection of current thinking in critical psychol- ogy from around the globe. This is not an all-inclusive collection; there are many voices and many views that are not present here; space was a limitation and, as editors, we needed to respond to the papers that were submitted to our original call for papers. The papers we have included repre- sent a range of concerns, standpoints, or positions within the pluralistic field of critical psychology, providing a taste of the rich vein of work that is being produced in this field.

Address for correspondence: Associate Professor Jane M. Ussher, School of Psychology, University of Western Sydney, PO Box 555, Campbelltown NSW 2560. Australia. Ernail: j.ussher@uws.edu.au or v.walkerdine@uws.edu.au.

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JANE M. USSHER AND VALERIE WALKERDINE

The first four papers consider critical psychological research and theory on gendered subjectivity. A common thread running through all four is the evaluation of subjec- tive accounts of experience, an area traditionally margin- alised by psychology. Leigh Coombes and Mandy Morgan present the results of a study that examines the discursive resources identified in women’s accounts of their spiritual- ity, from a poststructuralist standpoint. They also reflexively examine some of the problems of engaging with research and theory in a context where women have historically been constituted as lacking, invisible, and silent. Susan Dormer and Bronwyn Davies investigate ways in which women talk about their desires, describing themselves as (mis)appropri- ating aspects of Foucault’s theorising for psychology. They suggest that desire is a way of naming possibilities of who we might be and thus, as we produce readings of ourselves, we envisage possibilities for ourselves. They say that, in listening to women’s talk, subjection to womanhood can be understood as a necessary co-condition of moving towards the not yet known, not yet lived (im)possibilities mapped out in desire. Niamh Stephenson examines the question of agency in intersubjective communication, using a woman’s written memory to re-read social constructionist accounts. She argues that agency is constituted in communication that involves direct challenges to subject positioning, rather than being something that we are endowed with as unitary subjects. Anne Pheonix and Stephen Frosh turn their atten- tion to hegemonic masculinity, and explore its relevance to a group of 11- to 14-year-old schoolboys. They argue that attributes such as hardness, antagonism to school-based learning, sporting prowess, and fashionable looks remain very influential in determining boys’ popularity and also their views of themselves and others as properly “mascu- line”. They also examine ways in which social class and “race” impact upon constructions of, and are drawn upon in constructing, modes of hegemonic masculinity.

The next two papers examine ways in which critical psychology has addressed issues in clinical psychology and therapy. Angelina Baydala presents a critique of the basic theory, practices, and research of cognitive therapy in terms of the empirical validation project. She argues that research in clinical psychology that focuses on validating psycholog- ical phenomena treated as natural objects severely limit theoretical and practical understandings of therapeutic processes. She also claims that narrow and mechanistic explanations of cognition enable empirical validation of techniques and serve to create a marketable trade for those in control of psychotherapeutic technology without broad- ening our understanding of mental suffering. Continuing in a similar vein, Glenn Lamer argues that recent discussion in the psychology literature concerning what works in the real world of therapy suggest that a broader, more flexible inter- pretation of the scientist-practitioner model is required, one that combines empirically supported psychological techniques and clinical wisdom as an awareness of thera- peutic context and relationship. He demonstrates that this integration of scientific and critical perspectives is evidence-based and consistent with best therapy practice. Thus, practitioners who apply cognitive-behaviour therapy may also draw on narrative, psychodynamic, interpersonal, systemic therapy and other critical frameworks in their psychological work. He concludes by proposing a critical- practitioner model in therapy that introduces relational and contextual factors into the scientific therapy equation.

The final four papers examine a range of different themes, illustrating the diversity of argument in critical psychological thinking. Amanda LeCouteur and Martha Augoustinos examine public responses to the question of

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the appropriateness of a national apology for the past practices of forcible removal of Indigenous children from their families and communities. They employ a critical discursive approach to analyse the ways in which common argumentative forms, discursive practices, and rhetorical devices were deployed in comments on a newspaper website, locating their analysis within the discursive litera- ture on “race” and racism.

Elizabeth Wilson argues that, whilst critical psycholo- gists have tended to shy away from evolutionary explana- tions of psychology and behaviour, certain aspects of Darwin’s evolutionary theories are enabling for a critical approach to psychology. Her paper explores the role given to neurophysiology in Darwin’s most identifiably psycho- logical work, The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals, paying special attention to reflex action, organic sympathy, and blushing, and through these examples argues that a Darwinian system provides an excellent framework for thinking psychology critically.

Ann Game and Andrew Metcalfe adopt a phenomeno- logical approach to challenge conventional assumptions about the nature of care, considering it in relational rather than interactional terms. They argue that care is an in- between or transitional phenomenon, requiring trusting suspension of self and a grateful holding that is also a grate- ful openness to being held.

Finally, Stephanie Austin and Isaac Prilleltensky conduct a review of the field of critical psychology, as a means of illustrating its diversity and plurality, in order to provide us with an opportunity to reflect on the develop- ment of the subdiscipline. Through interviewing active criti- cal psychologists, they point to three dialectics in the areas of action, method, and context, and use this as a means of pointing to future directions for critical psychology.

We end with two commentaties. Mervyn Bendle reflects that critical psychology in Australia must realise its intellec- tual promise as a critical discourse within psychology and the human sciences generally, a task that is made imperative by the rise of globalisation and the social and political challenges it is producing, and by the genetic determinism associated with the Human Genome Project. Ben Bradley and Jane Selby bemoan the loss of the critical edge that was present in pre-enlightenment psychology, yet absent post- Darwin, when psychologists distanced themselves from politics and morals in the interests of science. However, they also turn their critical gaze on the subdiscipline of criti- cal psychology, arguing that experience is often negated in this field. They argue that today’s critical psychology should be both reflexive about the discipline’s political and value commitments, and set out from the diversity of individualised experience to best fulfil the critical objectives of the discipline of psychology as it was first conceived: as the touchstone of science and the guarantor of social progress. They conclude that such a step would have productive consequences for pedagogy, research, theory, and political practice.

In conclusion, whilst these papers reflect a range of different, even contradictory or competing positions, their very diversity is the sign of a field that is lively with debate and dialogue. We hope that this special issue will serve to broaden this debate to areas of psychology as yet unfamiliar with arguments in critical psychology, enriching both the debate within this developing subdiscipline, and hopefully within psychology as a discipline itself.

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