Dialogues at the Edge of American Psychological Discourse: Critical and Theoretical Perspectives

This book explores the discipline of psychology through in-depth dialogues with scholars who have lived at the turbulent edges of mainstream psychology in the USA, and who have challenged the most cherished theoretical frameworks. It includes researchers whose work has been widely esteemed in recent decades, but has ultimately not been taken up to reconstitute the theoretical direction of the field. This volume chronicles perspectives from select scholars on the current states of their respective areas of the field, their understanding of how their work has been metabolized, and their concerns about the conceptual frames that currently set the theoretical boundaries of the discipline. These authors demand a reinterpretation of thresholds to allow for a less monological emphasis in the adoption of particular frameworks, and to demonstrate historical, social, economic and political consequences of their chosen frameworks. The contents of the volume will assist theoreticians and clinicians in their understanding of how particular kinds of knowledge are determined, accepted, and produced in the field at large.