A major concern of social constructionist psychology relates to the cultural-historical embeddedness of psychological constructs, theories, techniques. For instance, cognitive-behavioral therapy typically involves a focus on individual minds, their computational mental processes, and suffering as an obstacle to the mundane fulfillment of personal satisfaction. This kind of approach to mind, or to suffering, arises specifically out of a Western, industrial, worlded outlook. Not only does it fail to capture other ways of being human (i.e., those that more more collectively oriented, holistic), but it often marginalizes or conceals other forms of experience -- i.e., those that do not conform to the normative cultural background that is typically Eurocentric, male, etc. Social constructionist critique often aligns itself along two fronts. First, it demonstrates the socio-historical constructedness of typical psychological categories (see the Burr articles and/or the Gergen video). Second, it foregrounds the experiences and struggles of those typically left out of the dominant psychological picture.

As in the last section, I'm wondering what stood out to you as especially noteworthy, interesting, or significant for this section (and why). Some of the questions and issues that I continue to think about follow (though please feel free to draw on your own questions, and issues/themes).

Following the work of on liberation psychology (see the Martn-Bar reading), should psychologists redesign their theoretical and practical tools from the standpoint of their people, from the standpoint of their own lives, sufferings, aspirations, and struggles - i.e., should there be a Latin American psychology, which would be different from a traditionally European-American psychology, or African-American psychology?

Following the work of feminist psychologists, to what extent has psychology historically been dominated by a male perspective? In other words, how do the theories and practices produced through the discipline of psychology reflect the lived realities of men and obscure or distort the lived realities of women?

Thinking back on the section on cognition and memory, what are the drawbacks for the metaphor of "mind as computational device"? Or, as in the Burr essay on "personality" or the Buss articles on evolutionary psychology, what are the problems inherent in framing psychological categories in ways that seemingly escape their use or contextualization?