Beyond Universals: Local Regeneration

Abstract

To talk of psychology in the singular has always been inaccurate. From its beginnings the proper focus for psychology has been contested, resulting in multiple approaches to theories and practices, or to what we are calling “psychologies” in the plural. While certain approaches undoubtedly have prevailed in creating what could be called a mainstream, holding the bulk of institutional funding and positions, many alternate approaches to psychology have thrived in small pockets. Those psychologically minded people who have been schooled in the mainstream, and have been later able to improvise and join the kinds of cultural work needed to transform colonial and (post)colonial legacies, have undergone a re-orientation in how they approach psychological suffering and healing. Of what does this re-orientation consist?

By revolution of the mind, I mean not merely a refusal of victim status. I am talking about an unleashing of the mind’s most creative capacities, catalyzed by participation in struggles for change.

(Robin Kelley, 2002a, p. 191)