Ian Parker - Psychology is Not What You Think
Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health
Mad in America
4.7 • 212 Ratings
🗓️ 11 March 2020
⏱️ 54 minutes
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Summary
Ian Parker is one of the most important contemporary critics of the discipline of psychology. A prolific writer, with over 25 books to his name, he has a formidable reputation in the fields of critical psychology, Marxist psychology, and psychoanalytic theory. He is a fellow of the British psychological society, Emeritus Professor at the University of Leicester, and the managing editor of the Annual Review of Critical Psychology. Parker is also a practicing psychoanalyst analyst and a member of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research and the London Society of the New Lacanian School.
His career reflects the principles he talks about – the importance of challenging powerful institutions and the need for collectively mobilizing against discrimination and exploitation. As the "Psy-disciplines" face increased scrutiny for involvement in past abuses, continued collusion with powerful and unjust institutions, and deep criticisms over current psychological research and practice, Parker's work has particular relevance.
His criticisms of psychology and psychiatry started from his university days as a student. He observed that while other social sciences were critical of their received knowledge and open to contributions from the civil rights and women's movements, psychology continued to reinforce old power relations and pathologized these same social movements. Since then, Parker has become one of the most well-known critics of mainstream psychology, and his work repeatedly questions the role of ideology and power in the field. These contributions are evident throughout his writing, including his four-volume 'major work' Critical Psychology (2011) and a Handbook of Critical Psychology (2015). He is currently the editor of the 'Concepts for Critical Psychology' series for Routledge.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Mad in America podcast, your source for science, psychiatry, and social justice. |
| 0:13.7 | Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Mad in America podcast. |
| 0:17.7 | This week in psychology, we covered some fascinating research news. In a new study, |
| 0:22.9 | researchers used EEG technology to discern antidepressant effectiveness and found no difference |
| 0:29.1 | whatsoever when compared to placebo. Other research has found barely any consensus in the way |
| 0:35.6 | patients on antipsychotics and experts in the field |
| 0:38.7 | understand what causes their symptoms. And lastly, a new commentary in academic psychiatry |
| 0:45.0 | asserts that psychology needs to pay serious attention to the social and structural determinants |
| 0:50.4 | of health, and not just to internal and individual concerns. This last study specifically |
| 0:56.9 | lends itself beautifully to what will be our discussion today. For we have Dr. Ian Parker as our |
| 1:02.9 | guest on the podcast. Dr. Parker is a fellow of the British Psychological Society, Emeritus Professor |
| 1:09.4 | at University of Leicester, and the managing editor of |
| 1:13.4 | annual review of Critical Psychology. He has written over 15 books in numerous languages and has a |
| 1:20.1 | new one coming out soon. And we will discuss that and a lot more. Dr. Parker, welcome to Madden America. |
| 1:27.0 | How are you today? Thanks. Thanks for having me |
| 1:28.9 | here. All right. So let me just dive in to the questions. So the first thing I wanted to ask is that |
| 1:37.1 | a lot of what we will talk about is called critical psychology. So before we get into anything, |
| 1:42.8 | could you tell our listeners about what critical psychology is and what started your interest in this field? |
| 1:50.9 | Well, critical psychology is a way of stepping back and looking at the discipline of the discipline of psychology, |
| 1:58.0 | rather than taking what the psychologists say for granted. So instead of |
| 2:04.1 | turning the gaze around and looking at normal people who are the non-psychologists, the critical |
| 2:10.5 | psychologists turn the gaze around and look at what the psychologists are doing. Basically, |
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