Viewing critical psychology through the lens of queer

Abstract

This article constitutes an intervention by two arts and humanities scholars with an expertise in queer studies and an outsider's interest in the discipline of critical psychology. First, it proposes a critical comparative history of the homosexual rights movements that predates ‘queer’ and the development of the discipline of psychology. Second, it examines some of the most recent currents in queer theory and tests their applicability to psychology. In particular, it looks at the modes of ethical philosophy that have been engaged by the so-called antisocial turn in queer and asks to what extent post-structuralist models of ethics might trouble the foundational belief in a normative idea(l) of health, in which even progressive critical psychology has an investment.

Keywords:

• queer theory
• critical psychology
• arts and humanities perspectives
• ethics
• history
• Michel Foucault
• Jacques Lacan
• Emmanuel Levinas
• antisocial turn
• health and harm

Notes

1. Latterly, one of the ways in which the Mattachines sought to achieve their ends was through collaboration with science, including psychology (see Minton, 1997, p. 345)

2. The list, though not arbitrary, is not exhaustive. The idea was to cite one work for each of the years in question.

3. There are exceptions to this rule. Ian Parker's work has commented on ways in which Lacanian ideas have filtered into the discipline of psychology in the latter's adoption of discourse analysis (see Parker, 2005).

4. The term originates with a panel on ‘The Antisocial Thesis in Queer Theory’ that took place at the MLA Annual Conference held in Washington, DC, USA, 27 December 2005. The panel included prominent contemporary queer theorists, Lee Edelman and Judith Halberstam, who are both literary and cultural studies scholars.

5. For a more nuanced discussion and critique of the interpretation of SM as therapeutic, produced within the discipline of social psychology, but broadly operating along the political/theoretical lines suggested here (see Barker & Langdridge, 2009).