Editing Critical psychology (section)

===South Africa===
The complex sociopolitical history of South Africa, and its relationship with mainstream psychology, created a setting in which critical psychology could be impactful.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2016-05-11 |title=ARCP 3: Anti-Capitalism (2003) |url=https://discourseunit.com/annual-review/arcp-3-2003/ |access-date=2023-10-19 |website=Discourse Unit |language=en}}</ref> South Africa is a good example of a context in which mainstream psychology positioned itself alongside neo-colonialism, racism, and capitalist exploitation - during the country's Apartheid era - which led to the need for critical alternatives within the field that could challenge ideological complicities.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last1=Painter |first1=Desmond |last2=Blanche |first2=Martin Terre |date=2004-11-01 |title=Critical Psychology in South Africa: Looking Back and Looking Ahead |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/008124630403400402 |journal=South African Journal of Psychology |language=en |volume=34 |issue=4 |pages=520–543 |doi=10.1177/008124630403400402 |issn=0081-2463}}</ref> During apartheid, mainstream psychology supported the oppressive political system - some psychologists actively and others passively. In the early 1980s, at the height of apartheid, progressive white psychologists and a growing number of black psychologists began to research and practice alternative programmes to critique and resist mainstream psychology's role in perpetuating apartheid in South Africa.<ref name=":1" /> In this way, critical psychology started to develop in South Africa.

As is the case in other parts of the world, critical psychology in South Africa was born from interrogating psychology in relation to politics. Firstly, psychology was accused of being a product of, and supporter of, an oppressive political system in which its supposed neutrality and scientific objectivity were informed by the sectors of society that benefited from the ideological and economic dominance that it upheld.<ref name=":0">{{cite web |title=Critical Psychology in South Africa: Looking back and looking forwards |url=http://www.criticalmethods.org/collab/critpsy.htm}}</ref> Secondly, once critical psychologists in South Africa revealed the ideological flaws in mainstream psychology within the country's context, work began to reconfigure the field as a progressive and socially relevant practice with theoretical and methodological approaches that could benefit all members of South African society.<ref name=":0" />

The establishment of critical psychology in South Africa took various forms between 1980 and 1994. Although the field was not necessarily fully formalised during this time, spaces and organisations were created for its ideas to be expressed and developed: such as in the University of Cape Town's (UCT) psychology department, the formation of the Organisation for Appropriate Social Services in South Africa (OASSSA), Psychologists Against Apartheid, the South African Health and Social Services Organisation (SAHSSO), and the establishment of the academic journal ''Psychology in Society (PINS)''.<ref name=":1" /> Some of the main theoretical and practical achievements of these developments were: the forging of a way to critique the categories of class, race, gender, and other structural factors impacting the discipline of psychology, the encouragement of students to think critically about the politics of psychology, and rebuilding international links as well as relationships with other social and health sciences in South Africa.<ref name=":1" />

However, not all these initiatives continued after the end of political struggle and the transition to democracy. After 1994, professional psychology in South Africa was reorganised through the establishment of the Professional Board for Psychology that exists within the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA). This statutory body regulates the profession with its systems of licensing and certification.<ref name=":0" /> Within these systems, critical psychology is more of an approach to the field than it is a professional category on its own. From the 2000s until recent times, critical psychology moved more toward studying certain domains, such as gender or race, and in the process, the overarching project of establishing a formalised field of critical psychology has either been discarded or broadened to refer to anything that is 'non-mainstream' in psychology.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Painter |first1=Desmond |last2=Kiguwa |first2=Peace |last3=Bohmke |first3=Werner |date=2013 |title=Contexts and Continuities of Critique: Reflections on the Current State of Critical Psychology in South Africa |journal=Annual Review of Critical Psychology |volume=13 |pages=849–869}}</ref> Critical psychology in South Africa is therefore mostly applied as a theoretical approach.