Re Envisioning Theoretical Psychology

This volume presents a re-envisioning of the field of theoretical psychology and offers unique visions for its present and future from leaders of North American philosophical psychology. It contends that theoretical psychology has reached ‘middle-age’ and must consider new directions to renew its growth. Rooted in a range of research traditions and the intellectual biographies of its authors, it paves the way toward this necessary revitalization of the content, activities, responsibilities, and hopes of theoretical psychology. The authors situate their analyses in the context of the increasing gap between alternative and mainstream and between the discipline and the profession of psychology. They demonstrate that changes in society, culture and technology, the internationalization of the psychological humanities, and the cross-fertilization of intellectual innovations from other disciplines now afford possibilities for new orientations in theoretical psychology. The volume aims to do justice to psychological topics, human beings, and the intellectual problems that psychologists encounter, while also providing space for (meta)theoretical engagement, often neglected in the discipline. Together, the chapters in this collection make the case that a renewal of the discipline and practice of psychology is a task that is best accomplished collectively, and, despite significant disagreements, in solidarity.

Does the practice of psychology make a significant and positive contribution to human welfare and the struggle for a good society? This book presents a reinvigorating look at psychology and its societal purpose, offering a bold new philosophical foundation from which professionals in the field can deeply examine their work.

This book studies the ideological nature of mainstream scientific psychology. It raises critical questions about the dominant forms of psychological theorization and praxis, based on their validity, social relevance and power privileges. Re-envisioning Psychology critically interrogates scientific images of the mind, individual, gender, development, society and culture that mainstream psychology promotes. The issues taken up in this book revolve around the pivotal concerns of psychology’s scientific basis, its dominant quantitative research methodology, the construction of ‘individual’ as the unit of analysis, the conceptualization of ‘social’, ‘cultural’ and ‘gender’ in relation to individualism, and the understanding of abnormality as shaped by the discourses of medical science and capitalism. Comprehensive and topical, the book will be useful to students, researchers, and teachers of psychology, applied psychology, social work, gender and women studies, and sociology. It will also be of interest to professional counsellors and psychotherapists.

Routledge International Handbook of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology is a compilation of works by leading scholars in theoretical and philosophical psychology that offers critical analyses of, and alternatives to, current theories and philosophies typically taken for granted in mainstream psychology. Within their chapters, the expert authors briefly describe accepted theories and philosophies before explaining their problems and exploring fresh, new ideas for practice and research. These alternative ideas offer thought-provoking ways of reinterpreting many aspects of human existence often studied by psychologists. Organized into five sections, the volume covers the discipline of psychology in general, various subdisciplines (e.g., positive psychology and human development), concepts of self and identity as well as research and practice. Together the chapters present a set of alternative ideas that have the potential to take the field of psychology in fruitful directions not anticipated in more traditional theory and research. This handbook will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of the theory, assumptions, and history of psychology.

This Open Access book offers a model of the human subject as complicit in the systems that structure human society and the human psyche which draws together clinical research with theory from both psychology and the humanities to advance a more social just theory and practice. Beginning from the premise that we cannot separate ourselves from the systems that precede and formulate us as subjects, the author argues that, in reckoning with this complicity, a model of subjectivity can be created that moves beyond binaries and identity politics. In doing so, the book examines how we might develop a more socially just psychological theory and practice, which is both systems work and intra-psychological work. In bringing together ways of thinking developed in the humanities with clinical psychotherapeutic practice, this book offers one interdisciplinary take on key questions of social and emotional efficacy in action-oriented psychotherapy work.

This discipline has become more reflective in recent years. It has also become blatantly philosophical, which is itself cause for reflection. The philosophy of psychology has not been exactly a burgeoning field, and yet psychologists and philosophers of all persuasions are writing philosophical psychology. Perhaps all this activity merely reflects the uneasy bifurcation of psychology into biological and cognitive domains. After all, there were similar flurries in the 1920s and 1950s when the discipline assumed new directions. But, before, there were too many things to do; scientific knowing seemed so compelling and so singular in methodology. Today, the entire enterprise is much more uncertain, and not just psychology, but all human scientific inquiry. The fun damental questions remain much the same, of course; what has changed is that philosophers are explicitly addressing questions of psy chology and psychologists are at least implicitly engaged in philosophy. The bounderies are no longer clear cut! Theoretical psychology is as much the doing of philosophy as it is of experimental research. Volume 4 of these Annals attests to this state of affairs. The psychologists' style reflects their philosophical understanding; the philosophers differ according to what they take to be psychological knowledge.

Disciplinary psychology has failed to achieve a coherent conception of human agency. Instead, it oscillates between two differing conceptions of agency that are equally untenable: a scientistic, reductive approach to choice and action, and an instrumental approach that celebrates a romantic notion of free will. This book examines theoretical, philosophical psychology and argues for a historically and socioculturally situated human capacity for choosing and acting in ways not entirely determined by culture and/or biology. The authors present a detailed developmental theory of how agentic capability emerges from the pre-reflective activity of humans in a real physical and social world. Implications of the theory are considered for psychological research and practice, and for the broader socio-political impact of disciplinary psychology in Western liberal democracies.

Traditional sources of morality—philosophical ethics, religious standards, and cultural values—are being questioned at a time when we most need morality’s direction. Research shows that though moral direction is vital to our identities, happiness, productivity and relationships, there is a decline in its development and use, especially among younger adults. This book argues that hermeneutic moral realism is the best hope for meeting the twenty-first century challenges of scientism, individualism, and postmodernism. In addition to providing a thorough understanding of moral realism, the volume also takes preliminary steps toward its application in important practical settings, including research, psychotherapy, politics, and publishing.