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Psychologization

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Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology

Introduction

Psychologization is not a consensual concept, nor within the literature of (critical) psychology, nor within adjacent disciplines. Due to diverging theoretizations, it does not point to a clear-cut phenomenon. However, overviewing the primary and secondary literature on the subject, it is clear that the critique of psychologization is central to the critique of psychology. Albeit that the concept itself has been criticized, e.g., formulations such as the psychologization of spirituality, of emotional distress, of humanitarian aid pose the problem that the second term always already is inextricably linked to the psychological discourse (and is almost unthinkable or unconceivable without the psy-discourse). No wonder then that psychologization has been called an unworkable bulldozer concept (Illouz, 2008). Still others consider it nevertheless as the central tenet of critical psychology or even as a crucial concept for a psychoanalytic critique (De Vos, 2011; Parker, 2010)...

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Correspondence to Jan De Vos .

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De Vos, J. (2014). Psychologization. In: Teo, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5583-7_247

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5583-7_247

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