Chapter 3: Deidologizing and understanding of cultural truths

Summary of Chapter:

This chapter offers a critical analysis of widely accepted psychological theories, thoughtfully questioning and addressing commonly held assumptions. We review accepted theories in some of the major fields of psychology: developmental, cognitive, abnormal, clinical, and forensic. We provide questions and activities for you to reflect on, challenge, counter, contextualize, accept, and/or revise these theories, particularly from the perspective of the oppressed. We discuss major downfalls of centering and reifying a Western psychological approach to psychology and mental health, particularly as it impacts immigrants, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, TGNC, women, the poor and working class, and people with disabilities. We also offer examples of how psychologists have reflected on, evaluated, revised, rewritten, and reworked psychological theories and concepts from the perspective of those who have experienced oppression.

Learning Objectives:

• Critically engage with the “canon” of psychological theories, concepts, and terms
• Identify and analyze the influence of social, cultural, economic, and historical factors on individuals, families, and communities
• Demonstrate knowledge about what liberation psychology is, how it applies to your life, and how it applies to introductory psychology theories and concepts.

Key Terms and Concepts:

• CRT-Critical Race Theory

• Decolonization

• Theory

Embodiment Practice: This workbook might bring up a variety of thoughts and feelings. You may have well-used helpful strategies to help manage whatever comes up for you. We offer an embodiment practice for grounding, being present with the material, and potentially managing any thoughts or feelings that come up for you.

• Stretch
  • Take a few breaths
  • The invitation is to turn to the right, move your chin down towards the center of your chest, and then to the left, continue circling 1-2 times
  • Then turn your head to the left, move your chin down towards the center of your chest, and then to the right, continue circling 1-2 times
  • Raise your shoulders to your ears, hold for a moment, and then release
  • Move any part of your body that feels tight or needs some attention, or stretch your hands down or out

History/Context:

To engage in deidologizing cultural truths, we will be reviewing many topics that people have strong reactions to. These reactions are not “good” or “bad”; however, it is important to be aware of them and how they might influence your engagement (or lack thereof) with these topics. There are many common reactions to reading about the role of colonization, Whiteness, and various forms of oppression in the field of psychology.

• Shame over one’s privilege
• Guilt over past behavior and beliefs
• Defensiveness over being asked to interrogate one’s perspective
• Anger over having to experience oppression
• Resentment over being asked to change
• Exhaustion over having to experience constant oppression and then deal with it in a course or workbook
• Intellectualization, where we focus on facts instead of the human/feelings components of oppression
• Hopelessness about the future and helplessness about what to do about these areas
• Excitement over learning more and hopefulness about being able to apply new theories/thoughts/perspectives

(3.1) Are any of these feelings coming up for you when thinking about engaging with oppression and privilege? If so, which one(s)? If not, why do you think that is the case? What feelings are coming up for you? Why do you think these particular feelings are coming up for you?

You have a choice as to what to do with the emotions/common reactions. Some offerings are:

• Be curious—where are they coming from? Why these feelings? What are they trying to tell me? Where do I feel them in my body?
• Make connections—is there anyone I can talk to about my feelings? Any readings I can do? Online or in-person communities I can engage with?
• Ask yourself, what do I usually do with these feelings/reactions? Are there healthy ways that I have engaged with them in the past and can do so now?
• Keep reading, keep engaging, even with the feelings
• Take a break and then come back to the information when you feel able

(3.2) What do you choose to do now? Why?

Cultural truths of psychology often show up as psychological theories. Theories are frameworks or an organized way to put together ideas that are used to explain different aspects of human thought, feeling, and behavior. Often, theories are created to explain, predict, and change human behaviors.

Deidologizing cultural truths of psychology means questioning the common assumptions and practices in the field of psychology. For example, it has been commonly believed that two-parent homes are the best structure for raising healthy children. Is this true? Is it true in all circumstances? Is this belief connected to oppressive beliefs about heterosexuality and individualism? Reviewing, putting into historical context, and challenging theories can help us understand the connection between cultural truths and oppressive dynamics.^[1]

• Psychology as a field has a history of focusing on what is “wrong” with people, how people do not conform to societal ideas about what is “normal,” and how we need to “fix’ people.
• But what if our definition of normal is limited? Or wrong? What if the goal of life is not to conform to a definition of normal that was created by people with power, for them to maintain power? What if people did not need to be “fixed”?
• Deidologizing also asks us to understand that we all have internalized, through socialization, oppressive belief systems that have been taught to us by the people who uphold the mental health industrial complex.
• “Over the past four decades, the mental health industrial complex has used the biomedical explanation for mental suffering. This focus on diagnoses that result from problems of the brain and not from social factors has contributed to an exponential increase in consumed medications and total revenue earned from the mental health and addiction services provided in the United States.”^[2].
• This lack of attention to the social factors, particularly oppressive factors, that can lead to the development of mental suffering, is called  “psychologization”,^[3] where the entire human experience is put into a box of psychological functioning and brain chemistry without attention, resources, or changes to social conditions.

Deidologizing

(3.3) What do you consider “normal” behavior? “Abnormal” behavior? What have you been taught in psychology courses about what behavior is “normal” and “abnormal”?

(3.4) Reflect on your time in college: What are the expectations for how a college student should act, look, or behave? What is considered ‘normal’ behavior in a classroom? Do you agree with these norms—why or why not?

(3.5) What is your reaction to reading the statement, “We don’t want to be normal,” and hearing that Will Hall does not take psychiatric medications for Schizophrenia? Why do you think you are having this reaction?

What is Normal?

Many people who have not engaged with the mental health system are surprised/dismayed/concerned when they read that someone with Schizophrenia, in particular, and diagnosed with psychiatric disorders in general, does not want to be considered “normal” and does not want to take medications. Why is this the case? Oftentimes, because we have internalized what it means to be “normal,” and that everyone wants to be “normal.”

• “Normal can be defined as any behavior or condition which is usual, expected, typical, or conforms to a pre-existing standard.”^[4]
• For many, what is normal in US society is to be a productive member of society by going to college, working at a societally accepted job until you retire, and getting married to one person and having children.
• It is not having “symptoms” like hearing voices; it is focusing single-mindedly on tasks before you, being “polite” and not saying what you truly mean or feel, and it is prioritizing your thoughts and discounting or minimizing your feelings.
• It is being sane and being neurotypical. What is deemed as acceptable or “normal” is often based on the values, beliefs, and actions related to white supremacy, often predicated on white, middle- and upper-class, heterosexual, Protestant, able-bodied, sane, neurotypical, age thirty to forty-five, English-speaking, in monogamous relationships, cisgender males. A minority that is held as the norm, the ideal, the goal.

Normal, defined by these values, tells people to conform, not to stand out, to be like everyone else. Normal becomes a cultural truth that we are taught to aspire to. And the many people who do not fit these criteria can experience daily pressures to emulate this norm, which is a form of mental health oppression.

• When you review the history (and current day applications) of psychology, people are labeled “abnormal” or mentally ill if they express a full range of emotions (women and hysteria), rage and fight against oppression (Schizophrenia as the protest disorder), and engage in behaviors that are deemed outside of the boundaries of what is acceptable in our society or cultures (“homosexuality” as a psychiatric disorder in previous DSMs).
• This goal to be “normal” can disconnect us from ourselves, others, spirit, and earth. And people can be placed in restrictive communities-prisons, involuntary commitments, even jobs and spaces that tell us over and over again we are not good enough as we are.
• Whereas the “mental health” liberation policy by Reevaluating Counseling states, “The pressure to be ‘normal’ makes people feel ‘abnormal,’ afraid of being ‘different,’ and afraid to question or try to change society.”

Sanism

Additionally, this focus on being “normal” contributes to sanism, a form of ableism that is used against individuals whose experiences aren’t considered sane or neurotypical by society. It is “the systemic and systematic discrimination and oppression of people who have been diagnosed with psychiatric disorders or who have or are perceived to have mental differences or emotional distress”.^[5]

• The term sanism was coined in the 1960s by activist lawyer, Mortin Birnbaum,^[6] and in the 1990s, Perlin popularized the concept of sanism.^[7]‘
• Sanism can be found in the discrimination in housing and employment for people with psychiatric disorders, in media equating “mental disorders” with violence, even though statistics show us time and time again that people diagnosed with psychiatric disorders are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators of violence, and in coercive practices to force people to use psychiatric medication to receive or access survival benefits.^[8]

Sanism does not recognize the social construction of disability, which points to environmental barriers as the primary cause of disability. What do you think of when you hear the term “disability” or “disabled”? Maybe we don’t need to change people; instead, we need to change our perceptions of people and our environment, so we have a society built for all, not just the sane and able-bodied.

• Understanding disability as a social construction does not mean that we don’t support people; instead, it means that how we support people changes, and part of that support is not making people feel like they are abnormal or wrong or deficient.
• This video, entitled “Why everything you know about autism is wrong” by Jac den Houting, adds to this perspective. The speaker points to something called the double empathy model. Basically, this video points out that people with autism can communicate well with others with autism. People who do not have autism can communicate effectively with others who also do not have autism. Difficulties emerge when individuals with autism interact with those who do not have autism. The different brain processes don’t understand each other.
•  What it does not mean is that the brains without autism are better or normal; it just means that the brains with and without autism are different and have different communication needs.

(3.6) What examples of sanism have you encountered?

Neurodiversity

One attempt to address sanism is the shift towards the language of neurodivergence and neurodiversity. The development of theories of neurodiversity occurred in the 1990s. The term has been attributed to social Scientist Judy Singer.

However, it has been pointed out that “the terms ‘neurological diversity’ and ‘neurodiversity’ were first printed in 1997 and 1998, respectively, in the work of the journalist Harvey Blume, who himself attributed them not to Singer but rather to the online community of autistic people, such as the ‘Institute for the Study of the Neurologically Typical’”.^[9]

Similar to the social construction of disability model, the intention of using the word neurodiversity was to shift the focus and discussion of people with Autism from a conversation around deficits and pathology to a conversation that focused on the fact that we all have different brains and different ways of thinking about and experiencing the world. Not only do people think differently, but thinking differently also leads to creative solutions and generates new ideas.

Perspectives supporting neurodiversity point out that just like our physical environment needs diversity to flourish, we as humans need diverse ways of thinking and experiencing the world to flourish.

Centering the Experiences of those who have experienced psychiatric diagnoses

What might we learn if we listen to the stories of those who have experienced psychiatric diagnoses and their family members?  When we listen to the range of stories of those who have experienced psychiatric diagnoses, the culturally taught “truth” of what it means to be “normal” and that everyone aspires to attain it is challenged over and over again.

• Additionally, many LGBTQ+ people grow up in societies and live with families that, via colonization and oppression, have identified being heterosexual and cisgender as “normal.” This leads to families and societies focusing on how people “should” be and who they “should ” love or be in a relationship with, as opposed to affirming people’s sexuality/sexual orientation and their genders.
• Many people have internalized these “shoulds” and end up believing that they are not worthy as they are. These societally driven feelings of worthlessness have been connected to the high rates of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts in LGBTQ communities.
  • A survey found that 40% of the approximately 6,000 trans people had attempted suicide at least once in their lives, and that Trans People of Color experienced the interaction of structural racism and anti-trans stigma.^[12]
• And it is important to highlight that LGBTQ+ communities have been actively resisting and fighting against these stigmas and their lethal impacts.
  • From protests and advocacy to challenging psychological theories through research and clinical practice, as well as in classrooms, LGBTQ+ people have been centering survival and thriving in spaces that often support oppression.
  • LGBTQ+ people have worked to externalize the colonial and oppressive dynamics that many have been taught to internalize.
  • LGBTQ+ people have identified joy in being themselves through art, humor, education, and more. In psychological studies, a special issue titled Mobilising queer joy: Establishing queer joy studies highlights the “profound beauty of queer love, queer and trans joy, gender euphoria, and the strength and depth of 2SLGBTQIA+ community care and chosen families.”^[13]
• In the article The Power of Queer Joy: A Formidable Act of Resistance, we find numerous examples of how LGBTQ+ folks engage in joy.
  • Defying societal expectations like Little Nas X, Michael Sam, Bain, and Rep. Sharise Davids.
  • Creating spaces of belonging like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera.
  • Nurturing mental and emotional well-being, like the National Queer and Therapists of Color Network.
  • Empowering future generations like the writers in the book So Many Stars: An Oral History of Trans, Nonbinary, Genderqueer, and Two-Spirit People of Color by Caro De Robertis. 

We encourage you to view the websites associated with the different people and organizations. After reviewing, what new thing have you learned about how LGBTQ+ people have identified and engaged in joy? Outside of this list, which LGBTQ+ people do you think engage in joy? In what ways do you engage in joy?

We can apply deidologizing to other “truths” found in psychology, including our understanding of mental health and psychiatric diagnoses. Let us return to Will Hall.

• At the time of the article, Will Hall identifies as 43 years old, half Native American, and an advocate of Mad Pride, activists who challenge how to view mental illness and mental health diagnoses.
• He presents a viewpoint that questions cultural norms regarding what is considered normal and what is not. He explicitly states that he believes the distinction between “crazy” and “healthy” in psychiatry is arbitrary. Additionally, he argues that the excessive use of psychiatric medications is dangerous and often serves as a tranquilizer for many individuals.
• Though this is not everyone’s story, it is many people’s stories, stories that are often left out of psychology textbooks.

Hall is part of a movement called Mad Pride. Mad Pride consists of many movements, “where people who have been defined as mentally ill reframe their conditions and celebrate unusual (some call them “spectacular”) ways of processing information and emotion.”^[15]

(3.7) How do Hall’s experiences and perspective challenge commonly held beliefs about what is normal? What is mental illness, and how do we treat it? What are your thoughts about this perspective? What questions do you have?

Mad Activists

“People in severe emotional distress are often pathologized, diagnosed, and institutionalized rather than responded to with care, understanding, and compassion. The psychiatric user/survivor movement challenges the systemic injustices of psychiatry and calls for more humane alternatives to be made available.

• The term “mad” has been reclaimed intentionally as a deliberate interruption or sabotage of the dominant psychiatric perspective. It challenges the entire basis of the medical framework, which is that people have illnesses or disorders.
• Before the last 200 years in history, the term “madness” was widely accepted in society and was not a medical term. The reclamation of “mad” is a provocation to psychiatry, as it is a complete rejection of its diagnostic expertise and power.
• Mad activists seek acceptance within society for who they are, rather than being seen as a problem to be fixed or seeking inclusion within a broken system.
• Experiencing distress, however confusing that might be to others, is a human experience and should be responded to with compassion, love, curiosity, and empathy, not fear and stigmatization.
• Instead of jumping to conclusions that there is something wrong with the person, this could be viewed as a way of communicating pain, processing trauma, or being at a life crossroads where significant change is needed.
• This doesn’t mean no supports are needed; however, mad activists ask that human experiences not be pathologized or psychiatrized. Mutual aid and peer support may provide more meaningful and effective forms of support than psychiatry during times of distress or overwhelm.

In 2010, researchers published a report about what “service users” thought about the way mental health and madness should be treated in society. The existing social model of disability, whilst preferable to the medical model, remains framed around the concept of “impairment”. An understanding of madness based on socio-political factors could be a helpful progression. This might include social, political, and environmental perspectives.

• People who identify as mad want equity and to completely revolutionise how madness is viewed by society, as well as advocating for human rights, ending coercive/abusive treatment, and the pathologizing of human emotion.
• For decades, we have been arbitrarily grouping people with a collective identity as a social movement, even though their perspectives are vastly different. For a social movement to be effective, there needs to be consideration of the costs and benefits that allyship and partnership with others might bring. The assumption of being one collective, cohesive movement is potentially slowing down social change, as the changes people seek are often in opposition.” -https://www.madinamerica.com/2021/09/mad-activists-langauge/

We believe that it is important to note that there is a range of beliefs and perspectives among those who experience mental health diagnoses.

• Some do not believe in the use of psychiatric medications and are completely against involuntary hospitalizations.
• Others, who also challenge psychiatry’s differentiation between what is normal and “abnormal,” still believe in the use of psychiatric medications and the judicious use of involuntary hospitalizations.
• The reality is that the perspectives of those who experience mental health diagnoses, especially significantly impactful and stigmatized ones, are as varied and diverse as the experiences of mental health diagnoses.
• The above perspective and experience are not provided to tell you that this is “the way.” Instead, it is one example of how you can start to deideologize cultural truths in psychology.
  • Who has the power to decide what is normal? Abnormal?
  • Who gets to decide on treatment? Involuntary hospitalizations? Why?
  • What are the effects of these decisions on individuals, families, and communities? And what beliefs are those decisions based on?

(3.8) Who do you think gets to define what is normal? Abnormal?

Cultural Truths

Cultural truths and the connection to colonial psychology

As we have stated before, the field of psychology and the accompanying theories developed were grounded in the work of White, heterosexual, cisgender men. Narvaez (2021) highlights key beliefs in colonial psychology founded by the originators of US psychology. Narvaez describes how these beliefs have become cultural truths in the field. These beliefs are: 1) the individual is central, 2) creation must be improved, 3) life is compartmentalized, 4) ownership is possible and desirable, and 5) existence is hierarchical.

• The individual is central. The individual is responsible for everything- accomplishments, failures, finding a job or not a job, finding a partner(s) or not, whether a child engages in poor behavior or not, for being rich, for being poor. There is an emphasis on individual liberty over social responsibility. People and their thoughts, behaviors, and feelings are seen through the lens of individualism. This is exemplified through psychology’s focus on studying individual-level factors such as self-esteem, ego, self-centeredness, neurochemistry, and more. This study is usually done at the expense of looking at the complexities of existence, including systemic factors that impact people, such as community, institutions, government policies and procedures, and economic dynamics. “When the self has primacy, self-oriented behaviors are a priority”.^[16]
• Creation must be improved. There is an underlying belief that humans are inherently bad, sometimes described as “sinful,” having “animalistic” natures. This belief in the inherent “badness” of human beings has been used to place White maleness as the bringers of logic, reason, and rationality to combat this belief. Additionally, all who were not white males were depicted as irrational, emotional, and unable to truly engage in reasoned decision-making, leading them to need White males to guide them in private and public life. “All else was objectified and could be exploited. With this view, it is easy to condone harsh punishments and unjust hierarchy as necessary to keep people in line (especially inferior, low-class people)”.^[17]
• For example, there is a history of psychologists believing in eugenicist principles to “improve” humanity.
  • Life is compartmentalized. Life is viewed in terms of “either/or.” People, animals, and experiences are described in discrete terms with clear-cut boundaries between this and that. The focus is on what is seen and observed, quantifiable, easily put into a category, and isolated, studied without taking into account context and relationships. “Individualism extends into the description of the world as made up of separable individual units with discrete boundaries, whether human/animal/plant, life/death, material/spiritual”.^[18]
• For example, we look at child development without looking at the dynamics of context, such as neighborhood gentrification, generational trauma, economic or political exploitation, relationship to land, and more. And this is justified by calling systemic factors “confounding variables.”

• Ownership is possible and desirable. In the colonial worldview, one of the primary ways to attain happiness is to own. Over-focusing on material gains (materialism), for example, owning animals, land, and property, is considered both normal and desirable, especially if it comes with wealth. This continues to be seen as true even though some psychological studies focused on materialism state that  “ownership [is] a dysfunctional orientation that leads to ill-being”.^[19]

• This tenet is seen through justifications for the enslavement of groups of people, for pre-ethics boards’ experiments on animals, and developmental psychology theories that identify ownership as a primary component of “normal” development.

• Existence is hierarchical. Grounded in the belief that people are inherently evil and that people (white European class privileged males in particular) have the purpose of creating order and using others as they desire, hierarchy emerges easily as the next step. There is a sense of entitlement that supports colonization and its justifications, such as racism, genocide, and eugenics. “The European worldview of their superiority made them intolerant of alternative views…Wherever it has gone, colonialism culture generally has emphasized conformity, uniformity, and universality at the expense of diversity.” The pervasive nature of this worldview is internalized and manifested by groups of people who do not identify as White, European, class-privileged, and/or male.

• • Robin DiAngelo describes areas of entitlement in her descriptions of the psychology of White privilege and White fragility.^[20]

Why have these cultural truths been maintained in psychology as a field? 

A large part of answering this question is related to the field of psychology’s attempt to establish itself as a science.

• It is important to explore why some of these cultural truths developed and have been maintained in the field of psychology. A significant part of the history of psychology is the field’s attempt to establish itself as a science. Specifically, as a science that is comparable to the physical sciences^[21] such as physics, biology, and chemistry.
• In the 19th century, the new discipline of psychology was attempting to find recognition, power, and respect.^[22]
  • Politically, psychologists chose to align with the natural sciences as opposed to the humanities to differentiate the field from people who practiced spiritualism and other approaches to understanding mental life.^[23]
  • Psychologists associated with introspection, behaviorism, evolutionary psychology, and cognitive psychology all proposed strategies, particularly statistical and experimental methods, to help define psychology as a science.
  • This is one of the first accepted cultural truths in the field that psychology is an objective science similar to that of the physical sciences.

• • At the same time, some psychologists criticized the attempt to make psychology on par with the physical sciences.

• They argued that psychologists were focused more on methodology as opposed to truly exploring and understanding the complexity, nuance, and realities of understanding human behavior, actions, and psychological phenomena. They further argued that methods and theories did not take into account the socio-cultural-economic or local context.

Theories are developed to explain. To explain phenomena, behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. While theories can increase our understanding of a particular topic, they can also limit our understanding.

• Oftentimes in psychology, the simplicity of proposed theories is considered key. However, at the same time, human life is “embedded in history, culture, society, interpersonal relations, subjective realities, interpretations, and physical constraints”.^[24]
• Additionally, theories change (and should!) with time. Consider how applicable theories would be if modern theories of psychology did not take into account the role of social media on self-esteem, relationship development, sense of community, and more. Or if people talked about the recent increased rates of depression and anxiety among youth without discussing the COVID pandemic?
• Theories can constantly be adapted, supported, discarded, or advanced as we gather new information and perspectives. As such, theoretical simplicity can be harmful in fully understanding people.
• Complex issues require complex theories. Yet, there have been glaring omissions in our understanding of theory development in psychology.

Psychologists have long argued that every aspect of the field, including theory development, is based on the “assumption of Whiteness.” To be explicit-from a Critical Whiteness Studies perspective, Whiteness is not about White people. It is not about a category of people dependent on the color of one’s skin. Instead, we need to understand Whiteness as a social concept when it comes to our discussions on race. It is a social concept in the sense that there is no biological support for racial differences; however, there is a real-world impact of racial categorization.^[25][26]

• These authors, amongst many others, also argue that Whiteness, indeed the concept of race itself, needs to be understood as a colonial construct.
• The centering of Whiteness as the norm is another accepted cultural truth in the field. Race in the Western world was created and utilized to extract wealth and people from countries deemed “inferior” to Europeans, and then later, also those deemed “inferior” to North Americans.
• In the space of psychology, as in the space of the broader Western world, Whiteness is deemed to be the default, the norm, the group by which all others are judged. This allows Whiteness to be both “normal and invisible.”^[27]
• It assumes that European history is central and the standard for psychological research and theory development, ie, most psychology textbooks start with European history and make little to no connections about psychological development in other countries or the influence of other countries on European psychology.

(3.9) A professor asks this question in his psychology course, “Would psychology be different if Nazi Germany or imperial Japan had won World War II”? What do you think? Why or why not?

Subjectivity

Instead of objectivity being the goal of psychology and its theories, what would it look like if we accepted subjectivity as a valid perspective to approach the field and develop theories? Psychology focuses on what it means to be human. This includes cultural and historical aspects that are influential, as well as ethical dimensions.

• Unlike the natural sciences, which often study static phenomena, psychological research often misapplies a “subject-to-object relationship” ^[28] reducing complex, evolving human beings to mere objects of study rather than recognizing their lived, subjective experiences.
• Cultural dynamics have influenced every aspect of how psychology has developed, including which concepts have been preferred, which have been ignored, and which have been given resources to flourish. As Teo points out, mainstream Western psychologists do not emphasize concepts such as ubuntu, harmony, or preferential option for the poor, concepts that are central to some cultures’ understanding of human behavior.^[29]
• “As for psychology, it has been criticized for reinforcing the existing economic system rather than challenging it. Some argue that mainstream psychology focuses on helping people accept social and economic inequalities rather than questioning or changing them. Western psychology, in particular, has been criticized for failing to address the psychological impact of wealth inequality.”^[30]
• There is an argument for a theory of subjectivity to undergird psychology. This emphasis on subjectivity would begin with an analysis of the “social, historical, and cultural dimensions of human subjectivity”^[31] or what is called sociosubjectivity.
• In addition, an analysis of subjectivity would include intersubjectivity and intrasubjectivity.
  • Intersubjectivity refers to the interactions with other subjects, which include relationships between and amongst people, such as family, peers, community members, friends, and the influence of mass media.
  • Intrasubjectivity includes the focus on personal characteristics that mainstream psychology is noted for, characteristics of thinking, feeling, and being. These areas are all needed, as in all of our lives, all of these areas influence us individually and collectively. And theories should be developed that reflect reality.

More and more authors, with particular attention to liberation psychologists, are pointing out the ways psychology as a field has engaged in historical, cultural, systemic, and sociopolitical oppression. There are major downfalls in centering and reifying a Western psychological approach to psychology and mental health, particularly as it impacts and perpetuates harm against immigrants, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, TGNC, women, the poor and working class, and people with disabilities. Along with needing theories that accurately reflect the realities of people’s complex lives, we need to name what happens when theories are developed in the context of simplicity, objectivity, Whiteness, and colonization.

•  Individuals and groups are harmed when one group with power defines the reality for everyone else.
• For example, LGBTQ+ communities have had to engage in deidologizing and problematization throughout the history of psychology.
  • In 1972, during the American Psychiatric Association meeting, Dr. Henry Anonymous spoke.
  • To camouflage his appearance, Dr. Anonymous (who was later identified as Dr. John Fryer) spoke wearing a tuxedo that was three sizes too big, a Richard Nicon mask that he and his partner had redesigned, and a wig. He spoke through a microphone with voice distortion capabilities. And he spoke: “I am a homosexual. I am a psychiatrist.”^[32]
  • These words may not be as impactful today, but in 1972, homosexuality was defined as a mental disorder in the DSM. Being identified as such would have destroyed his career and might have put him in physical and emotional danger.
  • Later, Dr. Fryer stated, “I had been thrown out of a residency because I was gay; I had lost a job because I was gay. That perspective needed to be heard from a gay psychiatrist by an audience that perhaps might be more inclined to listen to a psychiatrist.”
  •  Due to his stance and the organizing of many LGBTQ+ mental health providers, homosexuality was finally removed from the DSM. This removal exemplifies the beginnings of the shifting of cultural truths about the “abnormality” of diverse sexualities.
  • As stated by Kay Tobin Lauhsen, a lesbian who was a gay rights activist who helped organize Dr. Fryer’s speech with her partner, Barbara Gittings, “As a class, we were mentally ill – no exceptions. And that was wrong to begin with. And their science was poor”.^[33]

However, these cultural truths have not completely gone away. Many LGBTQ+ people grow up in societies and live with families that, via colonization and oppression, have identified being heterosexual and cisgender as “normal.” This leads to families and societies focusing on how people “should” be and who they “should ” love or be in a relationship with as opposed to affirming people’s sexuality/sexual orientation and their genders.

• Many people have internalized these “shoulds” and end up believing that they are not worthy as they are.
• These societally driven feelings of worthlessness have been connected to the high rates of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts in LGBTQ communities. A survey found that 40% of the approximately 6,000 trans people had attempted suicide at least once in their lives, and that Trans People of Color experienced the interaction of structural racism and anti-trans stigma.^[34]
• And it is important to highlight that LGBTQ+ communities have been actively resisting and fighting against these stigmas and their lethal impacts. From protests and advocacy to challenging psychological theories through research and clinical practice, as well as in classrooms, LGBTQ+ people have been centering survival and thriving in spaces that often support oppression.
• LGBTQ+ people have worked to externalize the colonial and oppressive dynamics that many have been taught to internalize. People have centered the problem as found in society and not in themselves.

(3.10) What might it mean that something can be considered a disorder in one version of the DSM but no longer considered a disorder in the next version?

Framework for Critically Engaging with Psychological Theories

We will be providing a framework for reflecting on, challenging, countering, contextualizing, accepting, and/or revising these theories, particularly from the perspective of the oppressed. This framework is influenced by the following concepts and theories.

Liberation Psychology

Liberation Psychology Theory

• The goal of liberation psychology is emancipation, individual and collective freedom from the internal and external wounds of oppression
• Theory and interventions are centered on lived experience and everyday reality
• The voices and stories of the oppressed are brought to the center and no longer silenced or hidden in the margins
• Social justice as an imperative
• Critical consciousness development as a vehicle for liberation

• Tenets of Critical Race Theory^[35]
  • Race and racism are part of our everyday experiences
  • Racism has been historically and is currently pervasive in the social, economic, and political structures of the United States
  • Racism is continuously evolving
  • Racism is a part of the educational system and always has been
  • The importance of having the stories and voices of BIPOC to serve as a counter-narrative to Whiteness as the norm
  • To combat racism, we need to develop anti-racism, anti-racist as people, and an anti-racist lens for understanding our lives, including the field of psychology
• Decolonization
  • While decolonization rightly calls for the repatriation of indigenous life and land, this section will focus on the decolonization of the mind. Decolonization of the mind calls for critically engaging with and deconstructing knowledge, theories, and methodologies based on White and Western ideology.
  • It does not mean to disregard all theories, but to critically engage with them to see if they actually apply and are relevant to different groups of people. It is to explore theories to see if they uphold oppression and harm or reflect on the nuance, complexity, and fullness of the experiences of different groups of people.
  • Decolonization centers the perspectives, narratives, and questions of oppressed communities and links this work to social change action.

We utilized tenets from the above perspectives to develop questions within a framework of critical thinking questions. We hope that you are able to pull questions from this framework to deconstruct, adapt, support, discard, or advance theories concerning you, your family’s, and your community’s lived experiences.

A Framework

(3.11) Choose a theory that you have learned about in your current psychology course. Use the above framework to analyze and critically engage with the theory. What are your thoughts about the process? What are your thoughts about this theory after going through this process?

Self-Reflection Questions

(3.12) What does it mean to you to deideologize cultural truths? How would you explain deidologizing cultural truths to a family member?

(3.13) How does it feel to read about Whiteness, both as a social construct and as something central in the field of psychology? Name specific feelings (not thoughts as of yet).