Critical psychology

Critical psychology is a modern branch of psychology. Psychology refers to the study of the mind, human behaviors, and how the two interact. Psychologists often work directly with patients, helping them to overcome trauma and behavioral issues. They study why people make specific choices and how to get people to improve or overcome persistent patterns of behavior.

Like most scientific disciplines, psychology has changed significantly since its inception. However, because psychology deals with individuals, it can also be heavily impacted by political and social movements. Critical psychology studies and critiques other psychological disciplines. It finds biases, such as the sexism inherent in early psychological theories, which may affect how psychologists interact with their patients. It also studies the effect of various social and political movements on the people psychologists treat. Having a greater insight into these issues provides psychologists with a better understanding of their patients, allowing for more personalized and effective treatments.

Critical psychology is often particularly concerned with societal power imbalances. Modern critical psychology holds that marginalized or oppressed peoples, people with less social or political power than their peers, often have greater psychological difficulties than others. The societal power imbalances affect them in a personal manner, and modern psychology sometimes struggles to address such difficulties. Additionally, many psychologists may struggle to understand the difficulties faced by oppressed or marginalized peoples. If a psychologist has never studied or experienced the difficulties faced by these peoples, the psychologist may underestimate or disregard their impact.

To better understand these experiences, critical psychology often uses a methodology different from mainstream psychology. Mainstream psychology tends to quantify the views and feelings of patients, allowing for a more mathematical analysis of their experiences. Critical psychology focuses more on interviews with patients, observations of their behavior, and the impact of societal movements upon that behavior.

Background

Psychology is a modern science that attempts to study human behavior from a variety of perspectives. It is rooted in two early psychological schools: functionalism and structuralism. Functionalism argued that the human mind changes on a regular basis, and for this reason, it is not worthwhile to study the ways humans form experiences. Instead, functionalism advised that psychologists should search for the underlying causes of human behavior. Many of the principles of functionalism have influenced modern psychological theories.

Structuralism advocated the use of specialized introspective techniques to gain a better understanding of human behavior. Though the process proved unreliable, the precedent set by using strict, scientific methods of researching behavior was invaluable. It is still used in psychological studies today. Modern psychological studies use systemic and objective procedures, precise observation, and theoretical interpretations.

Modern psychology is often broken down into two categories: experimental psychology and social psychology. Experimental psychology uses laboratory-based techniques to study human behavior. These experiments are used to test theories, develop new hypotheses, and examine the impacts of chemistry, biology, and physiology on behavior. Psychological experiments are similar to those carried out in other sciences. Social psychology is more concerned with how humans act in specific situations. It studies humans in their natural environments using tools like introspection, observation, and questionnaires. It generally relies less on formal experimentation.

Psychology can also be divided into several branches. Neuropsychology refers to the specific interactions between the brain structure and human behavior. It attempts to differentiate the responsibilities and functions of different regions of the brain and shows the impact brain structures have on personality and actions. Similarly, cognitive psychology studies how humans interpret, store, and utilize information. It also studies how that process impacts humans' behavior and daily lives.

Developmental psychology studies how the brain changes throughout the lifespan of the average human. It tracks the differences in how people think, react, and learn from childhood through old age. This gives psychologists a better idea of how to tailor their treatments to a particular patient. A teenager may react to treatment differently from a middle-aged person, and a middle-aged person may react differently from an older person.

Forensic psychology refers to the application of psychology to law enforcement. It allows police officers to better understand how psychological factors might influence a case or investigation. This gives officers, judges, and other parts of the criminal justice system a clearer insight into the minds of both criminals and victims.

Overview

To continue to grow, psychology must change over time. Critical psychology aims to be at the forefront of the change, helping the discipline find the problems within itself. It aims to show psychology where it has erred in the past and how to correct those errors in the present. It seeks to critique the dominant psychological theories currently in practice by calling them into question. It also seeks to ensure that psychological practitioners are aware of the broader societal issues that can impact their discipline.

Unlike many other branches of psychology, critical psychology's focus on social issues leads it to carefully consider the context of a person's behavior. Individuals from different backgrounds and life experiences may view the world in different ways and thus react to stimuli in different manners. They may become stressed by different stimuli, react to stress in different manners, or need different types of care to progress past similar traumatic events.

One common theme examined by critical psychology is the balance of power within a society. Feminism, meaning the movement that has fought for equal rights for women, has had a profound impact on psychology. It also provides a useful lens with which psychologists can examine past psychological theories for flaws. For example, many psychologists in the 1970s based their theories on the erroneous assumption that stereotypically male psychological traits were healthy. These included independence, aggression, and high levels of activity. They also associated traits that were stereotypically female for the time, such as dependence and passivity, with poor mental health. Additionally, they mistakenly attributed women's lack of representation in the workforce as a fear of success or an inability to succeed, rather than addressing systemic sexism, hiring practices, and wage gaps.

The prejudices inherent in mainstream psychology can have a negative effect on both the science itself and the patients of prejudiced psychologists. They may not receive care tailored to their specific problems, may have their issues dismissed, or may be blamed for the result of systemic injustices. Critical psychology helps make practitioners of psychology aware of any biases they might be exhibiting. It also helps examine mainstream psychological theories for potential biases, such as previous eras' persistent sexist bias.

Many other aspects of critical psychology relate to the balance of power. Critical psychology has shown that societal power balance has a significant impact on how people think, speak, and behave. Though traditional psychology may allow doctors to treat the symptoms of such an imbalance in patients, it may not give doctors a proper framework for examining the societal problems that lead to those patients' distress. Critical psychology helps ensure that psychologists are aware of the implications of a societal power imbalance on multiple levels and might help psychologists better recognize the results of such an imbalance on their patients.

Critical psychologists also tend to study considerations that many traditional psychologists might miss or deem irrelevant. They watch wider social issues, including the political world and major social movements. They critically examine how current psychological trends interact with those issues, including whether those trends tend to empower the disenfranchised or reinforce the status quo. They also explore how beliefs that reinforce a negative status quo, including psychological beliefs, spread from one culture into another. Understanding how negative or harmful beliefs spread from one culture to another might help future psychologist better teach their patients to reject harmful beliefs, incorporating only positive beliefs into their personal worldviews.

Critical psychology tends to use different techniques for gathering information than traditional psychology. Mainstream psychologists tend to prefer gathering data in surveys and experiments where subjects' thoughts and behaviors can be collected, categorized, and transitioned to a numerical score. This allows researchers to quickly quantify their thoughts, feelings, and opinions. It also allows researchers to take a more mathematical approach when analyzing the results of their survey or experiment. However, critical psychology argues that such tactics tend to oversimplify human emotion and ignore important factors that might influence subjects' responses. Instead, critical psychology tends to prefer interviews and direct observational studies. These studies sometimes utilize audio and video recordings of interactions with subjects and provide a wider view of the subjects' lives.

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