Choice Recommended Read
Critical psychology has developed over time from different standpoints, and in different cultural contexts, embracing a variety of perspectives. This cutting-edge and comprehensive handbook values and reflects this diversity of approaches to critical psychology today, providing a definitive state-of-the-art account of the field and an opening to the lines of argument that will take it forward in the years to come.
The individual chapters by leading and emerging scholars plot the development of a critical perspective on different elements of the host discipline of psychology. The book begins by systematically addressing each separate specialist area of psychology, before going on to consider how aspects of critical psychology transcend the divisions that mark the discipline. The final part of the volume explores the variety of cultural and political standpoints that have made critical psychology such a vibrant contested terrain of debate.
The Handbook of Critical Psychology represents a key resource for researchers and practitioners across all relevant disciplines. It will be of particular interest to students and researchers in psychology, psychosocial studies, sociology, social anthropology and cultural studies, and to discourse analysts of different traditions, including those in critical linguistics and political theory.
A comprehensive state-of-the-art internationally-constituted review of the rapidly expanding field of critical psychology, which will provide the key resource for researchers, teachers and students. It will define the scope of critical psychology and offer a route map to its future direction.
"The essays take aim at diverse areas of psychology, arguing for an approach focusing on the social context, often within a social justice framework. A recurring theme is that reductionistic models fail to capture the essence of human thought and behavior because the assumptions made in traditional psychological thinking lead to research methodologies that force measurement into constrained pathways that--the book argues--reflect social constructs rather than fundamentally important human characteristics. This book reflects critical psychology theories, showing little overlap with mainstream, empirical psychological thinking. Those interested in a depicition of the theory of critical psychology rather than an empirical treatment of psychological phenomena will encounter here a wide ranging exploration of the issues. Summing Up: Recommended." -B. C. Beins, Ithaca College, CHOICE
"It would appear that recency of research and a wider array of topics separate this book from the others. This book significantly builds on the work of its predecessors. The aim of this edited handbook is to provide a comprehensive overview of critical psychology in many fields in psychology. [...] The contents of this book have much to stir some readers out of their comfort zones, particularly those who have not been introduced to critical psychology. Taken-for-granted perspectives and terminology in psychology are forcefully questioned throughout the book. These include, among many others, personality, emotions, identities, sexuality, health, cognition, power, and education. Through questioning and offering alternatives, this book succeeds in enabling one to reconsider the seemingly obvious in psychology, thus potentially opening creative possibilities for research and practice." -Graham B. Stead, College of Education and Human Services at Cleveland State University, PsycCRITIQUES
"Ian Parker boldly states his hopes for The Handbook of Critical Psychology in the introduction: to provide the most thorough account possible of the scope of critical psychology. This ambitious project is tackled admirably." - Tom Payne, The Journal of Critical Psychology, Counselling and Psychotherapy
"This handbook does an incredible job of conveying the fundamentals of critical psychology along with an exciting overview of the contemporary scope of this revolutionary approach. Both specialists and students will consider it an essential resource. I will not be surprised if it significantly magnifies the impact of critical psychology around the world.'- Tod Sloan, Lewis and Clark College, USA
"A critical engagement with key topics in psychology with reference to critical debates across the field. A crucial resource for all psychology students."- Valerie Walkerdine, School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, UK
"Parker's Handbook of Critical Psychology is in one sense a book committed to overcoming the alienated character of modular work in the social sciences. By bringing together an assemblage of perspectives from remote disciplinary groupings, the compendium exemplifies an intellectual orientation that rejects the condition of functional separateness in the universe of academic knowledge production. Its declared target is the gamut of ideas, frameworks and activities which belong to mainstream "psychology" - as a (notoriously venal) academic discipline, (sometimes dehumanizing) professional practice, and (unavoidably value-laden) every day, commonsensical resource. And indeed, what emerges from the combined efforts of its contributors is nothing less than a bold and extensive critique, and sometimes revision, of the discipline on multiple fronts."- Raphael Mackintosh, Psychology in Society
