1.  Critical Praxis Cooperative. Critical Psychology: A Resource Site for Scholars, Activists, and Practitioners. https://sites.google.com/view/criticalpsychology/home

What is critical psychology?

"Unlike social, educational, or community, critical psychology is not an area or branch of psychology. Neither is it a particular theoretical approach that crosses areas and branches as do, for example, Freudian, Piagetian, or cognitive psychology. It is, more than anything, a position or perspective from which mainstream psychology is viewed and investigated in order to expose its inherent biases" (p. 472 of Holzman, L. (2013). Critical psychology, philosophy, and social therapy. Human Studies, 36(4), 471-489). 

"First, critical psychology turns the gaze of the psychologist back on the discipline...Second, critical psychologists often assume that where there is power there is resistance, and that in every dominant practice there are contradictions and spaces for us to work to challenge and change the existing state of affairs...Third, psychology is not only at work in the universities and the clinics...Fourth, the discipline of psychology pretends that it is a science, but it draws its images of the human being from culture and from everyday life to construct its object" (pp. 1-3 of Parker, I. (2007). Critical psychology: What it is and what it is not. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 1(1), 1-15).

"Critical psychology refers to a number of overlapping approaches that challenge mainstream psychology's implicit and explicit support for an unjust and unsatisfying status quo" (p. 18 of Fox, D., Prilleltensky, I., & Austin, S. (Eds.). (2009). Critical Psychology: An introduction (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE).

2. Yanchar, S. C. (1997). William James and the challenge of methodological pluralism. The Journal of Mind and Behavior, 18(4), 425-442.

Contemporary psychology, in contrast, has adopted two fundamental beliefs: that a single method provides the foundation for all legitimate knowledge, and (consequently) that this method - the received view of science - is the appropriate investigative tool for all psychological questions. According to the received view, clearly defined subject matter are to be observed and measured by an ostensibly detached observer, the presence of whom is considered causally unrelated to the phenomena under examination. Because no interaction is thought to take place between the observer and the observed, the nature of an independent reality is thought to be objectively ascertained. This conception of science – privileged as the single foundation for knowledge – has largely informed psychological methodology to the exclusion of other systems of inquiry. Indeed, many theories and method within psychology have simply been ruled out of court on the basis that they do not pass scientific muster. 

Despite the historically privileged status of the scientific method, however, scientific foundationalism has been called into question by twentieth century philosophers who reason that there is no objective, independent reality to be represented via the language of science.  Prominent scientists have supported this notion, recognizing that the way nature reveals itself depends on the question asked, the perspective taken, and the type of method employed. In fact, it is sometimes the case that contradictory results are accrued when using different methods or tools to ask similar questions. Because there is no access to an independent reality, via a single, sufficient method, many have argued that multiple methods should be employed, each of which can provide heuristic accounts of nature, and each of which seem particularly suited for answering certain kinds of questions. Along with William James, these thinkers argue that a solitary reliance on the scientific method reduces the likelihood that profitable advances might be made. 

Many psychologists agree with these philosophers of science – viewing psychological inquiry as the asking of questions, while arguing that not all questions may be profitably answered using the same method. Indeed, methodological pluralists in psychology hold that there are many questions which do not lend themselves to scientific investigation at all, for example: What is the nature of religious experience? A principal advocate of methodological pluralism, Donald Polkinghorne, has stated it this way: 

There is no one method which is the correct method for conducting human science research. The point of view taken [by Polkinghorne] is pluralistic in regard to methods and logics. There are various systems of inquiry that the researcher can use. Instead of trying to adapt one tool – whether it be statistical induction or existential-phenomenological description or something else – the researcher must try to select the research system that is appropriate for answering the particular questions he or she is addressing (Methodology for the Human Sciences: Systems of Inquiry, 1983, p. 280). 

He continues a few pages later, “As the community considers various knowledge claims, it can deepen and clarify its understanding of a topic through the integration of the results derived by various systems of inquiry…”. More comprehensive accounts can then be … combined into a single picture that does not omit crucial details of psychological life.  

3. Raeff, C. (2019). From objects to acting: Repopulating psychology with people who act. Theory & Psychology, 29(3), 311-335.

Abstract: This article builds on Billig’s (2013) claim that psychologists use too many nouns, which leads to inappropriately objectifying human beings and human functioning. Rather than treating human beings as physical objects or things in order to emulate the natural sciences, Billig calls for repopulating psychology with people who act. After summarizing Billig’s analysis, I argue that using nouns reflects prior theoretical assumptions about human functioning that inform psychology’s experimental and quantitative methods. I question varied theoretical assumptions and outline an alternative theoretical framework for conceptualizing what people do by positing action as a unit of analysis for psychology. This action perspective provides a theoretical basis for using verbs to characterize human functioning. Conceptualizing human functioning holistically and in terms of dynamic qualitative processes can transform psychology into a science focused on understanding the complexities of what people do as they act in relation to others in varied cultural contexts.

In 2013, Michael Billig published a wonderful book entitled, Learn to Write Badly: How to Succeed in the Social Sciences. A major claim of this book is that psychologists use too many nouns. By doing so, they are treating human beings as physical objects or things, rather than as people who act. Billig calls for repopulating psychology with people who act, and for using more verbs to describe and understand what people actually do. In this article, I first summarize Billig’s main points and recommendations. Then, my goal for this paper is to build on his work by arguing that psychologists’ habit of using nouns reflects prior theoretical assumptions about human functioning that lurk within the experimental and quantitative methods that dominate psychology. In addition to questioning those assumptions, I will outline an alternative theoretical framework for conceptualizing human functioning in terms of acting and active processes. This action perspective provides a theoretical basis for using verbs to characterize human functioning, and it can help to repopulate psychology with people who act in relation to others in cultural contexts (p. 311).

4. Spooner, M. (2018). An interview with Dr. Norman K. Denzin on the politics of evidence, science, and research. In James McNinch (Ed.). Dissident Knowledge in Higher Education. Regina: University of Regina Press, pp. 41-42.

MS: Could you unpack the term “politics of evidence” and what that means? I know you have written about that in the past.

 ND: Yes, I think that is a good place to start. l think this term is critical to the phase that qualitative inquiry is currently in. Taking the notion of evidence and prefacing it with the word “politics” is like saying that evidence itself is a contested term. This is a pushback against the notion of science having its own evidentiary base as a criteria or standpoint for evaluating what we do. When we speak of the politics of evidence, then, we talk about the structures of power and discourse that put in place a particular set of regulatory practices and criteria that will judge what evidence is, and how evidence can be used then for particular purposes.

The politics of evidence then contests that notion by saying that science is no longer just a neutral apparatus, but it is a structure integrated into a larger system of discourse ….

Science has always been part of a larger governmental initiative, but up until now … we were struggling internally to resolve those issues (quantitative/qualitative inquiry, for example). But, since 2000, and turning into this new century – in the United States at least, science-based research, No Child Left Behind legislation, the federal government mandating what will count as science and what will count as evidence – all of that has pushed its way into our research communities. Meanwhile the universities themselves have capitulated, so to speak, to the pressures of state and federal governments to provide a set of criteria that would warrant or validate the activities they engage in, that they reward, and that they fund.

We are now fighting a war on two sides. On one side is the pressure down from the neoliberal audit-based university, and then internally within our own interpretative, qualitative communities, we are fighting against pressures from science-based research, randomized clinical trial protocols, and mixed-methods initiatives. Then, on the other side, but again within our own community, we are asking, “Well, what is science-based research? What is a qualitative inquiry? Whose voice should be heard? How should we hear that voice?” … I think … this book … will bring to the fore the centrality of these external, outside-the-academy pressures that are coming down upon what our qualitative project has always been about.