Abstract
This chapter is about the prospects for Psychosocial Studies as a new academic discipline or subject-area. It will ask about the conditions which have enabled previous academic developments of this kind to succeed. Its central argument is that this has usually been where a new field has fulfilled social purposes beyond those of the academy itself. Such disciplines have given definition and form to values and interests located within different spheres of society. I am first going to discuss the examples of sociology and psychology, since it is in reaction to the contrary constraints of those fields that Psychosocial Studies has emerged, challenging the human adequacy of both of them. As with the other major social science disciplines, governments have had a large role in their promotion and establishment, though currents in civil society have had their part in this too. The social sciences have tended to see themselves as having a largely emancipatory social role. But there have been significant critiques of their functions and effects by Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno and by Michel Foucault. Advocates of Psychosocial Studies may wish to consider whether their field is to be understood as bringing potential benefit to humankind, and if so, in what ways?
I am secondly going to consider the examples of three smaller and more recent intellectual initiatives, mainly from a UK perspective. These are Leavisite English Studies built around the journal Scrutiny (1934–1953); Cultural Studies, originating at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in Birmingham (1964–2002); and the intellectual movement which came to be called Science Technology and Society, or STS, the social scientific study of the practices of the natural sciences and technology. Each of these initiatives has achieved a significant influence, though none of them have become established academic disciplines, as for example sociology, psychology, and anthropology had long since done. All three of these fields have distinctive theoretical and methodological foundations. But they have also all depended on having had connections with social and cultural movements outside the academy. My suggestion is Psychosocial Studies will only succeed in establishing itself as a new academic field if it is also fulfilling such broader social purposes. At the end of this chapter, I will suggest how one might begin to identify what these might be. I hope that readers might be able to find parallels to the examples of intellectual movements I have given here, located perhaps in different national contexts.
But perhaps the most important question to ask of Psychosocial Studies is about its purpose. Why should we want to see this field grow and develop?
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Notes
- 1.
One such attempt was made by Norbert Elias (1939/1994), in his “figurational” approach, but his has remained a minority position in sociology.
- 2.
- 3.
The development of many disciplines at UEL is described in M. Rustin and G. Poynter (eds) Building a Radical University: A History of the University of East London. (2020). I should declare a personal interest – in the 1990s I was Dean of a Faculty of Social Sciences at UEL, which included Departments of Cultural Studies, Innovation Studies (a variety of STS), and Psycho-Social Studies, as well as Sociology.
- 4.
Its aim was to give expression to the experience of people in subordinate positions in society, or subjected to its sanctions. “History from Below” was an allied current, giving rise among much other writing to the History Workshop Journal (1976–present).
- 5.
In Essex’s case, this allowed the establishment of a Psychoanalytic Studies Unit (now a Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies), of which Robert Hinshelwood and Karl Figlio were founding members. In UEL’s case, there was a large partnership with the Tavistock Clinic in which postgraduate courses were a substantial element.
- 6.
Notably in the Improved Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme (Layard & Clark, 2014).
- 7.
The field of sociology, by contrast, found itself engaged in many arguments and disagreements over issues of theory and method.
- 8.
Ronald Inglehart’s (1977) idea of a hierarchy of human needs, evolving as societies become richer, may be related to this value-oriented cluster of fields. The considerable interest in psychoanalysis in contemporary China may be an example of this kind of cultural development.
- 9.
There are major philosophical debates about these issues, for example, in discussions of utilitarianism (Wollheim, 1993, Sen & Williams, 1982) and in contrapositions of utilitarian and Aristotelian perspectives (Nussbaum & Sen, 1973). The Frankfurt School’s critiques of the ideology of capitalism are also relevant (Horkheimer & Adorno, 1947; Marcuse, 1964).
- 10.
Among its leading contributors, in addition to F.R. and Q.D. Leavis, were D.W, Harding, L.C. Knights, Wilfred Mellers, James Smith, and Denys Thompson.
- 11.
In the experience of many schoolteachers, if they were thinking in Leavisite terns, the working classes were those outside the school gates, by no means always sympathetic, whether as parents or adolescents, to the teachers’ work in their classrooms.
- 12.
See his description of this work in “Absolute Beginnings,” Universities and Left Review (1959).
- 13.
A different development which had its point of departure in Leavisism attacked its insular Anglo-centrism and empiricism and sought instead to establish literary studies as requiring a theoretical foundation, drawing for example on structuralist and poststructuralist ideas, and connecting English studies with an intellectual network of ideas. Some of the leading figures in this development, such as Terry Eagleton (2022), although highly critical of Leavis’s ideas, have nevertheless acknowledged his example of committed intellectual engagement.
- 14.
- 15.
Its origin (1952) was in an earlier generation, including influential Communist Party historians such as Christopher Hill, Rodney Hilton, and Edward Thompson.
- 16.
Rustin (1991) argued this case in arguing for an expanded definition of citizenship in the contest of the British welfare state.
References
Arnold, M. (1869). Culture and Anarchy.
Barnes, B., Bloor, D., & Henry, J. (1996). Scientific knowledge: A sociological analysis. University of Chicago Press.
Beck, U. (1992). Risk society. Sage.
Bjiker, E. E., Pinch, T., Hughes, T., & Parke, T. (Eds.). (2012). The Social construction of technological systems: New directions in the sociology and history of technology. MIT Press.
Bott, E. (1957). Family and social network. Tavistock Publications.
Butler, T., & Harrison, B. (2020) Sociology @ East London. In Rustin and Poynter, op cit.
Carson, R. (1962). Silent spring. Houghton Miflin.
Durkheim, E. (1897/1952). Suicide. Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Dworkin, D. (1997). Cultural marxism in post-war Britain. Duke University Press.
Eagleton, T. (2022). Critical revolutionaries: Five critics who changed the way we read. Yale.
Elias, N. (1939/1994). The civilising process. Blackwell.
Eysenck, H. (1985). The decline and fall of the Freudian Empire. Viking Press.
Fox Keller, E., & Longino, H. (Eds.). (1996). Feminism and Science (Oxford Readings in Feminism). Oxford University Press.
Giddens, A. (1998). The third way: The renewal of social democracy. Polity Press.
Gilroy, P. (1987). There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack: The cultural politics of race and nation. Hutchinson.
Goldthorpe, J. H. (1980). Social mobility and class structure in modern Britain. Oxford University Press.
Grossberg, L., Nelson, C., & Treichler, P. (Eds.). (1992). Cultural studies. Routledge.
Hall, S. (1959). Absolute beginnings: Reflections on the secondary modern generation. Universities and Left Review, 7, 17–25.
Hall, S. (2017a). Selected political writings. In S. Davidson, D. Featherstone, M. J. Rustin, & B. Schwarz (Ed.). Lawrence and Wishart.
Hall, S., with Bill Schwarz. (2017b). Familiar stranger. Allen Lane.
Hall, S. (2021a). Writings on media. In C. Brunsden (Ed.). Duke University Press.
Hall, S. (2021b). Selected writings on race and difference. In P. Gilroy & R. W. Gilmore (Ed.). Duke University Press.
Hall, S. (2021c) Selected writings on Marxism. In G. McLennan (Ed). Duke University Press.
Hall, S., & Jefferson (Eds.). (1976). Resistance through rituals: Youth subcultures in post-war Britain. Routledge.
Hall, S., & Whannel, P. (1964/2018). The popular arts. Hutchinson/ Duke University Press.
Hall, S., Critcher, C., Jefferson, T., Clarke, J., & Roberts, B. (1978/2013). Policing the crisis. Palgrave Macmillan.
Hall, S., Hobson, D., Lowe, A., & Willis, P. (1980). Culture, media, language working papers in cultural studies, 1972–79. Hutchinson.
Harding, S. (1987). Feminism and methodology. Indiana University Press.
Harré, R., & Gillett, G. (1994). The discursive mind. Sage.
Harré, R., & Madden, E. H. (1975). Causal powers: A theory of natural necessity. Blackwell.
Harré, R., & Secord, P. (1973). The explanation of social behaviour. Blackwell.
Hoggart, R. (1957). The uses of literacy. Chatto and Windus.
Horkheimer, M., & Adorno, T. (1947). Dialectic of enlightenment. Stanford University Press.
Inglehart, R. (1977). The silent revolution. Princeton University Press.
Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago University Press.
Kuhn, T. S. (2000). The road since structure. Chicago University Press.
Latour, B. (1987). Science in action: how to follow scientists and engineers through society. Harvard University Press.
Latour, B. (1988). The pasteurization of France. Harvard University Press.
Latour, B., & Woolgar, S. (1979). Laboratory life: The construction of scientific facts. Sage Publications.
Layard, R., & Clark, D. M. (2014). Thrive: The power of evidence-based psychological therapies. Allen Lane.
Leavis, F. R., & Thompson, D. (1933). Culture and environment: The training of critical awareness. Chatto and Windus.
Marcuse, H. (1964). One-dimensional man. Routledge.
Marsden, D. (1962). Education and the working class. Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Marshall, T. H. (1973). Citizenship and social class. In Class, citizenship and social development. Greenwood Press.
Marshall, G. (1990). In praise of Sociology. Unwin Hyman.
Mills, C. W. (1959). The sociological imagination. Penguin.
Moglen, S., & Steinhpouse, A. (Eds.). (1989). Out of Apathy: Voices of the new left thirty years on. Verso.
Mulhern, F. (1981). The moment of scrutiny. Verso.
Nussbaum, M. C., & Sen, A. (Eds.). (1973). The quality of life. Oxford University Press.
Oakley, A. (1972) Sex, gender and society. .
Popper, K. R. (1963). Conjectures and refutations. Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Richards, B. (2019). Politics: The psychology of everything. Routledge.
Richards, B., & Brown, J. (2020). The emergence of psychosocial studies. In Rustin and Poynter (2020) op. cit.
Runnymede Trust. (2000). The future of multi-ethnic Britain (the Parekh Report.). Profile Books.
Rustin, M. J. (1991). Psychoanalysis and social justice. In The good society and the inner world (pp. 41–56). Verso.
Rustin, M. J. (2014). Belonging to oneself alone: the spirit of neoliberalism. Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, 19, 145–160.
Rustin, M. J., & Poynter, G. (Eds.). (2020). Building a radical University: A history of the University of East London. Lawrence and Wishart.
Sen, A., & Williams, B. (Eds.). (1982). Utilitarianism and beyond. Cambridge University Press.
Sokal, A., & Bricmont, J. (1998). Intellectual impostures. Profile Books.
Titmuss, R. H. (1971). The gift relationship. Allen and Unwin.
Townsend, P. (1979). Poverty in the United Kingdom. Penguin.
Walby, S. (1990). Theorizing patriarchy. Blackwell.
Walby, S. (2011). The impact of feminism on sociology. Sociological Research Online, 16(3), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.5153/sro.2373
Wilkinson, R., & Pickett, K. (2009). The spirit: Level: Why more equal societies almost always do better. Allen Lane.
Williams, R. (1958). Culture and society. Chatto and Windus.
Williams, R. (1961). The long revolution. Chatto and Windus.
Williams, R. (1968). Drama from Ibsen to Brecht. Chatto and Windus.
Williams, R. (1971). The English Novel from Dickens to Lawrence. Chatto and Windus.
Willis, P. (1977). Learning to labour. Ashgate.
Wollheim, R. (1993). The ends of life and the preliminaries of morality: John Stuart Mill and Isaiah Berlin. In The mind and its depths (pp. 22–38). Harvard University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Rustin, M. (2024). The Purpose of Psychosocial Studies. In: Frosh, S., Vyrgioti, M., Walsh, J. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Psychosocial Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30366-1_42
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30366-1_42
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-30365-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-30366-1
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences