Critical Psychology – Comprehensive Exam Notes

Chapter 1 – The Basic Co-Ordinates of Critical Psychology

Critical Psychology (CP) is not a single theory but an orientation that interrogates mainstream psychology’s knowledge-claims, its practices and, especially, the power relations embedded in both.

• CP is intentionally diverse: it refuses any one canonical theory, practice or context.
• Its stance is simultaneously critical (diagnosing how psychology reproduces oppression) and proactive (designing alternative, emancipatory forms of theory and practice).
• Three analytic foci anchor CP:

1. Theory – scrutinising taken-for-granted conceptualisations in psychology and revealing their political implications (e.g.
   the pathologisation of homosexuality in the DSM until 1973).
2. Context – asking what supposedly universal knowledge means in specific settings (e.g.
   Western-devised IQ tests ranking an African woman as “less intelligent” because the construct of ‘intelligence’ is defined in Euro-American terms).
3. Practice – turning critique into action by inventing new, politically responsive interventions (e.g.
   approaching gender as a non-binary continuum rather than the masculine/feminine dichotomy).

Key Thematic Threads

1. Power and Psychology – Psychology is itself a political technology: it can entrench dominance or enable transformation.
2. Psychology as Ideology – Under the guise of neutrality, psychology constructs meanings that sustain domination.
3. Politics of Knowledge & Subjectivity – By claiming scientific objectivity, psychology hides the power that shapes both what counts as knowledge and how subjects are produced (individual over social; mind over context).
4. Psychological Imperialism – ‘First-World truths’ exported to ‘Third-World’ settings become prescriptive irrespective of cultural relevance (e.g.
   monogamy as moral standard).
5. Depoliticising Experience – Traditional psychology converts social suffering into private troubles.
6. Psychology-as-Politics / Psychopolitics – Using psychological concepts to expose power, provided we avoid reductionism. Two complementary routes: (i) politicising the psychological; (ii) psychologising politics so that strategic intervention becomes possible. Liberation psychology emerges here: examining the processes through which people achieve emancipation.
7. A South-African CP Agenda – Move beyond critique toward practices that (a) redress Eurocentrism, (b) tackle contextually urgent problems (Covid aftermath, housing, unemployment), and (c) generate locally driven interventions.

Chapter 2 – An African Perspective on Person, Knowledge and Science

Western psychology travelled with colonial power, presenting itself as universal, objective and value-free; culture appeared merely as “noise”.

• Cultural colonisation = 1-way transfer of theories, tests, and values from developed to developing societies.
• Western concept of independent self contrasts with interdependent / collectivist self common in many indigenous contexts.
• Ubuntu illustrates a different epistemology: knowing is relational, not detached.
• Cultural Psychology posits mutual constitution of psyche and culture; therefore, no psychological knowledge is value-free.

Indigenous Psychologies & Indigenisation

Indigenous psychologies = locally rooted classifications, theories and metaphors about being a person.
Indigenisation proceeds on three levels: (i) structural (institutional capacity to produce knowledge), (ii) substantive (applying psychology to national policy, e.g.
language in schooling), (iii) theoretical (building or adapting concepts to resonate with lived realities).
Example: blending Bandura’s social-learning theory with township interventions against juvenile delinquency.

African Metaphysical System

Worldview comprises assumptions about time, nature, human activity and relationality. Four interdependent philosophical pillars directly shape psychological topics:

1. Hierarchy of Beings – God → ancestors (recent & integrated) → humans → animals → plants/objects. All exist in relational dependence.
2. Vitality / Life-Force – Every entity is endowed with creative energy; human flourishing requires harmonising these forces (e.g.
   harvesting medicinal plants accompanied by ritual lest the plant “dies”).
3. Cosmic Unity – Holism replaces Cartesian separation; knowledge is participatory, not observer-distant.
4. Communal Personhood – Personhood is earned through community participation (Ubuntu, black tax); it is processual and revocable.

Consequently, psychological constructs framed in individualistic, ahistorical terms mis-describe African lived reality.

Chapter 5 – Fanon and the Psychoanalysis of Racism

Frantz Fanon exemplifies psychopolitics: analysing colonial power through psychoanalytic lenses and, reciprocally, reading psychic life as saturated by politics.

The Dream of Turning White & The Neurosis of Blackness

Within racist colonial economies the black subject forms a wish – ‘to be white’. This clash between desire and embodied reality produces a surface neurosis: the black child internalises racism long before any direct encounter with whites; trauma is cultural.

• The scapegoating / projection mechanism: whites disown guilt, locate ‘evil’ in blacks (e.g.
IQ, criminality).
• Phobogenic object – Blackness triggers irrational fear + ambivalent attraction, a combination yielding paranoid hatred yet sexual fascination.
• N* Myth / European collective unconscious – Not genetic but a sedimented network of stereotypes positioning blacks as repositories of Europeans’ “lower” impulses.
• Manichean binaries – Black/white split acquires moral, cultural and psychological weight, making reconciliation appear impossible.
• Two racist reactions: (i) hateful projection, (ii) jealous idealisation and sexual anxiety (e.g.
lynching rationalised as protection of white womanhood).

White-Mask Psychology

‘Black skin, white masks’ describes an in-between subjectivity: culturally coded as white but forever re-racialised by external gaze. Racism thus repeats itself intra-psychically, yet its origin remains socio-historical. Effective anti-racism must therefore act on both fronts.

Chapter 8 – The Psychology & Regulation of Gender

Gender = socially constructed meanings layered onto biological sex; historically framed as immutable binary difference.

Mainstream Psychology’s Contributions to Inequality

• Early research naturalised sex differences via biology → unitary sexual character (masculinity/femininity bundles).
• Later “socialisation” approaches retained binary logic; measurement scales (e.g.
Bem’s androgyny inventory) reified gender by reducing identity to a score.
• Androcentrism: male = norm; female behaviour explained as deviation or pathology (e.g.
‘penis envy’, higher diagnosis rates of depression/anxiety in women).
• Clinical practice sought to adjust women to male-centred worlds; non-conformity labelled disorder (e.g.
“gender identity disorder”, conversion therapies).

Alpha vs Beta Bias

Alpha bias exaggerates difference → justifies hierarchy; beta bias minimises difference → risks ignoring ongoing inequality. Both preserve the binary.

Feminist Post-Structural Re-theorisations

• Deconstruction: gender categories themselves are discursive products.
• Subjectivity is multiple, shifting, intersectional; bodies are inscribed by cultural norms (ideal slim femininity vs muscular masculinity).
• Gender = performance (Butler’s ‘performativity’) – produced through reiterative acts.
• Othering: Symbolic realm privileges masculinity; femininity cast as lack/excess.
• Agency via re-signification – repeating signs in new contexts to create novel meanings. Example: reclaiming “queer”.

Chapter 22 – Liberation Psychology (LP)

LP investigates how marginalised people understand, challenge and transform structures of oppression in pursuit of emancipation.

Central propositions:
\triangleright Multiple, intertwined oppressions (race, class, gender, age, sexuality, disability).
\triangleright Macro structures (institutions, ideologies) and micro subjectivities are reciprocally linked.
\triangleright Resistance is always possible but uneven; success reshapes both oppressor and oppressed subjectivities.

Social Formations & Modes of Domination

Hierarchical pyramids organise privilege; domination sustained through:

1. Violence
2. Political exclusion
3. Economic exploitation
4. Sexual exploitation
5. Cultural control
6. Fragmentation of the oppressed

Ideology & Interpellation

Ideology = meanings that sustain domination by telling people (a) what is, (b) what is good/bad, (c) what is possible. It ‘hails’ subjects, positioning them within power relations.

Two Faces of Power

1. Coercive – overt control, violence.
2. Pastoral/disciplinary – subtle self-regulation via norms (Foucault), diffused through ‘psy’ disciplines.

Critique of Mainstream Psychology

Individual-social dualism portrays persons as self-contained, obscuring dependence and collective action. A liberation psychology must reject this and treat selves as relational projects.

Modernity’s Ambivalence

Enlightenment promised reason & progress yet produced colonialism, racism, patriarchy, ecological crises. Three responses: (1) conservative nostalgia, (2) intensified modernism, (3) post-modern critique dismantling binary categories.

Critical Movements Inside Psychology (1960s →)

Crisis of relevance, feminist critiques, constructionism, discourse analysis, anti-psychiatry and Marxist, post-colonial inputs laid ground for Critical Psychology.

Theories of Oppression & Prejudice

• Right-Wing Authoritarianism – submissive to authority, aggressive to out-groups.
• Social Identity Theory (SIT) – identity built through in-group/out-group comparisons; collective change rather than individual adjustment is pivotal.
• Social Dominance Theory (SDT) – societies organise around age, gender and arbitrary-set hierarchies; individuals vary in Social Dominance Orientation (SDO).

Psychological Consequences of Oppression

Historical ‘damage thesis’ (misidentification, low self-esteem) vs revisionist emphasis on resilience & resistance. Bulhan’s three patterns:

1. Capitulation
2. Revitalisation
3. Radicalisation

Impacts span subjectivity (double consciousness), restricted emotional expression, intra-group hostility, mental-health risk; oppressors exhibit narcissistic denial, dehumanisation and loss of justice.

Denial mechanisms: outright denial, discrediting sources, re-telling, justification. Extreme nationalism (jingoism) institutionalises such denial.

Five Common Requirements for Emancipatory Practice

1. Critical Analysis – ideology critique, unveiling hidden power.
2. Self-Definition – reclaiming naming, forging pride (e.g.
   ‘Black is Beautiful’).
3. Collective Organising – grassroots associations, alliances.
4. Collective Action – public protest, strikes, sometimes counter-violence; allied struggles magnify legitimacy.
5. Spatial Re-Formations – dismantling segregated geographies, creating inclusive ‘third spaces.’

Obstacles & Ongoing Challenges

• Globalisation’s dual edge: expanded communication yet widening inequality.
• Psychological investments in existing identities make change emotionally costly.
• Mainstream ‘psy’ practices still adjust individuals to oppressive contexts.
• Material inequalities (jobs, housing) persist despite political change.
• Pervasive violence and the complex work of forgiveness/reconciliation (e.g.
post-TRC South Africa) remain unfinished terrains.

Cross-Chapter Integrations & Study Tips

• Throughout all chapters, interrogate the relationship between knowledge-production and power: ask ‘Who is producing this truth?’ and ‘For whose benefit?’
• Link Fanon’s psychopolitical method to Chapter 8’s performative view of gender: both show how embodied identities are structured by external power yet re-enacted internally.
• Use the African metaphysical system (vitality, cosmic unity) as a conceptual counter-example whenever Western dualisms (mind/body, individual/society) appear.
• Remember that CP’s critique is always double-edged: expose oppression and design contextually rooted, transformative practices.
• For exam essays, weave concrete illustrations (DSM homosexuality, IQ tests, lynching narratives, Bem scale, South-African township realities) to demonstrate theoretical points.

Good luck: approach every psychological claim with the CP reflex – examine its assumptions, its omissions, and the power relations it serves.