The development of critical psychology as a subject science

Klaus Holzkamp

pp. 28-45

in: Klaus Holzkamp, Psychology from the standpoint of the subject, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013

Abstract

One needs only to glance at current trends within the social sciences and psychology to gain the impression that, at present, subjectivity is experiencing a boom. From different theoretical perspectives, 'subject theories' are discussed and 'subjective" structures analysed; the people who are "affected" are integrated, questioned or talked about, self-testimonials and self-experiences are en vogue. "Everyday life" as the subject's living space is analysed and the particular quality of "everyday consciousness' emphasized. Methodologically, qualitative methods are increasingly recommended and tested as alternatives to or supplementary to quantitative ones, and the possibilities and limits of biographical methods are discussed; hermeneutic analyses of the construction of subjective meaning patterns are highlighted as an alternative approach to the mere collection of facts. Even in academic psychology, following the "cognitive turn", the subjective has become acceptable again, at least in some areas. This is obvious not only in the systematic usage of terms previously dismissed as "mentalistic", such as "expectation" or "consciousness' ("awareness"), but also in the way that traditional concepts are given a subjective touch by adding the prefix 'self": 'self-perception", 'self-consciousness", 'self-reinforcement", and — in the latest version of Bandura's theory — 'self-efficacy".