In a new article, published in the Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, scholars Erin Thrift and Jeff Sugarman present a thoughtful analysis of the term social justice and its use in the field of psychology. They outline the termâs multifaceted and complex history, illustrating that its usage today by psychologists may be reductive and problematic.
âHistory should give pause to psychologists who claim social justice as their mission,â Thrift and Sugarman write. âSocial justice has become a âcultural keywordâ and, consequently, whether psychologists realize it or not, invoking the term thrusts them and the discipline into a broader debate about human freedom, individual and collective responsibility, and the role of the state.â
The meaning of the term âsocial justice,â in Western, democratic states, has shifted throughout history. It has transformed alongside cultural developments and milestones and has garnered increased attention in recent years. Thrift and Sugarman point out that the definition of social justice lacks specificity, clarity, and consensus. Nevertheless, the field of psychology has aligned itself with a social justice mission, leaving some to wonder what exactly that mission means and entails.
âAlthough many psychologists proclaim social justice as central to their disciplinary and professional mission, it is not at all clear what psychologists mean by âsocial justiceâ and how they contribute to its aims,â Thrift and Sugarman write. âWithout clarity as to the meaning of social justice, we are no further ahead.â
The authors begin by outlining the multifaceted history of the term âsocial justiceâ in English speaking Western democratic countries and follow this with an analysis of its meaning within the field of psychology. They trace back the usage of the term to debates concerning the fair economic distribution of material goods and power and the reduction of the risks inherent in the capitalist political system. The term social justice was not originally used in reference to movements for gender or racial equality, as those injustices were said to have âremained invisibleâ until around the 1970s. The meaning of social justice shifted around this time, and it began to be applied to inequalities in nonmaterial goods, such as the recognition of difference and identity issues.
Thrift and Sugarman argue that the term has been misappropriated with the rise of neoliberal economics in the 70s and 80s. In this context, its meaning has been employed to refer to social justice as an individual virtue rather than a collective endeavor, a usage antithetical to the termâs original purpose. This shift in meaning transforms social injustices into conflicts reconcilable by private charity practices and self-care rather than movements for accountability and the reformation of systems and corporations. Discussing the neoliberal usage of the term social justice, Thrift and Sugarman write:
âConcepts can be reinterpreted over time. However, in this case, such a severe break with historical meaning is more likely opportunistic coopting of the term than a shift legitimately warranted by judicious conceptual analysis.â
Despite its origin, the differing views and conceptualizations of social justice now represent âthe nexus of a struggle among different political factions,â they write. Not all views and conceptualizations sufficiently address the term in its complexity, however. Thrift and Sugarman argue that for the term social justice to be consistent with this complex history, its utilization must acknowledge (1) its historical development and meaning, and (2) the contemporary challenges that surround its usage.
âThe history of social justice points to the necessity of understanding its complex and multifaceted nature,â they write. âTherefore, any accounts of social justice that are overly narrow (e.g., attending only to the redistribution of material goods or to identity politics) cannot adequately represent the concept.â
According to the authors, psychology, as a field, has aligned itself more closely with some conceptualizations of social justice than others. Psychologists have been criticized for adopting a more âidentity politicsâ approach to social justice in which they reductively attend to issues of identity and recognition while overlooking the intersection of identity with economic inequalities and broader structural concerns. It is not just that the privileging of identity-focused views of social justice obscures economic inequities associated with capitalism, but, as Thrift and Sugarman emphasize, it takes a complicit stance that allows for the perpetuation of these injustices. In this sense, psychologists have predominantly aligned with a reductive approach to social justice and in doing so have undermined their stated mission.
Claiming expertise in defining and treating psychological problems, the field of psychology has considerable influence on the use and understanding of social justice. As a result, âconfusion over the meaning of social justice has implications for psychologists interested in pursuing this aim, but also has broader political, social, and economic consequences,â Thrift and Sugarman argue. When psychologists promote the idea that psychological suffering is a state resolvable exclusively through individual interventions, such as psychotherapy, behavior changes, or drug treatments, structural issues can be ignored and perpetuated.
âPsychological explanations often have diverted attention from social, political, and cultural injustices and, in so doing, at least deflected, if not prevented, individuals from political participation,â they write.
The authors go on to outline how specific psychological explanations have deflected individuals from political participation and prevented systemic reforms. For instance, the suffering and subjugation of women was explained by hysteria, racial discrimination was justified by the inferior intelligence of people of color, homosexuality was classified as a mental disorder in the DSM, non-Western families are described as âenmeshed,â and the negative impact of poverty on childhood academic achievement has been recast as a lack of self-discipline or as deficits in other internal characteristics.
Not only are structural problems obscured in these explanations, but they are replaced with interpretations that exclusively place responsibility on individuals or individual characteristics. The authors write:
âA widespread error in psychology is that failing to recognize the constitutive force of our sociopolitical and economic institutions has led to fixing features of persons to human nature rather than to the institutions within which they become persons.â
Further, they illustrate that this approach is antithetical to social justice, as it was initially conceived, and contributes to neoliberal economics and the injustices that arise from current economic and political systems.
âPsychologistsâ endorsement of social justice may not only disguise the social and political sources of many mental health problems,â they write, âbut also further bolster the neoliberal ideal of individuals as self-responsible, competitive, enterprising, risk-seeking, adaptable individuals, who bear sole responsibility for their circumstances, who do not require or even eschew government support, and whose freedom is manifested by their capacity for choice.â
Thrift and Sugarman point out that psychologists benefit from an individualized promotion of social justice. Psychology as a field is âembedded in the market economy,â they write, so framing problems as arising from the individual may increase demand for psychological services. âConsequently, there may be little professional or economic incentive for psychologists to conceptualize personal difficulties other than in terms of the individual.â
âThus, psychologists aspiring to work for social justice should be judicious in their use of the term and cognizant of the political consequences they are promoting (even inadvertently).â
The authors observe this pattern in contemporary psychology practice. For example, lowered diagnostic thresholds and loosened criteria support claims that 46.6% of the U.S. population will experience a mental illness in their lifetime. As demand increases, so does the value of psychological services. Thus, psychology profits from promoting a reductive form of social justice that is contrary to its perceived aims.
One way to address the issue of harmful practices in the name of social justice is to develop greater clarity and consensus around the term. The authors argue that there is currently no coherent framework for evaluating and implementing social justice claims. In response, they propose adopting a structure promoted by Fraser (2009), which addresses three fundamental questions:
- âWhat is the good of social justice?â (principle of participational parity)
- âWho is owed social justice?â (all-affected principle)
- âHow are we to make decisions related to all aspects of social justice?â (all-subjected principle)
Fraser argues for a âprinciple of participatory parity,â meaning that all injustices should be considered as violations of social justice. Social justice and violations of social justice are evaluated in this framework âin terms of their effect on a personâs ability to participate socially and politically on equal grounds with their peers.â To address contemporary issues that surround social justice claims, the authors argue that globalization of social justice pursuits must be framed beyond the interest of a nation-state and must be able to recognize global injustices committed by transnational corporations.
For the field of psychology to apply social justice in terms of the principle of participational parity, Thrift and Sugarman suggest reflection on the following question:
âHow does psychological theorizing, research, or interventions help create social, cultural, political, and economic arrangements that permit individuals to participate on an equal level with their peers?â
They argue that the response from the field must go beyond simply promoting and increasing access to psychological services. Social justice calls for a large-scale reshaping of psychological services to address rather than undermine sociopolitical and economic issues.
âIf psychologists are to serve the interests of social justice, they cannot take their responsibility simply as helping individuals manage their anxiety in an unjust economic order,â Thrift and Sugarman write. âPsychological services that merely help individuals adjust to circumstances of poverty and inequality, without doing anything to change these conditions, is a disservice to social justice. It perpetuates the role of psychologists as âarchitects of adjustmentâ who preserve and protect the status quo, rather than as advocates for sociopolitical reform.â
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Thrift, E., & Sugarman, J. (2018, September 13). What Is Social Justice? Implications for Psychology. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology. Advance online publication. (Link)
âIf psychologists are to serve the interests of social justice, they cannot take their responsibility simply as helping individuals manage their anxiety in an unjust economic order,â Thrift and Sugarman write. âPsychological services that merely help individuals adjust to circumstances of poverty and inequality, without doing anything to change these conditions, is a disservice to social justice. It perpetuates the role of psychologists as âarchitects of adjustmentâ who preserve and protect the status quo, rather than as advocates for sociopolitical reform.â
I agree. And the historic and continuing primary function of today’s “mental health industry” is profiteering off of covering up rape of children. Which has nothing to do with social justice, it has to do with psychologists being criminal pedophile aiders and abetters.
Historically the psychologists had the Freudian cover up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Freudian_Coverup
And today’s DSM based theology allows the therapists to deny people’s real life concerns, change the subject to their make believe DSM non-diseases, then turn millions and millions of child abuse survivors into the mentally ill with the psychiatric drugs. Today, over 80% of those labeled as depressed, anxious, bipolar, or schizophrenic are misdiagnosed child abuse survivors. Over 90% of those labeled as borderline are misdiagnosed child abuse survivors. Despite the reality that child abuse is not a brain disease, it’s a legitimate reason for distress. The mental health professionals are not intelligent enough to know this. They believe drugging little children to cover up child abuse is how to best help a child that was sexually assaulted.
https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/04/heal-for-life/
All this misdiagnosis of child abuse survivors was intentionally built into the DSM. No “mental health professional” today may ever bill any insurance company for ever helping any child abuse survivor ever, according to the DSM, unless they first misdiagnose the child abuse survivor with one of the billable DSM disorders.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-child-does-not-have-bipolar-disorder/201402/dsm-5-and-child-neglect-and-abuse-1
Where is the “social justice” in psychologists and psychiatrists attacking, defaming, and torturing – with neurotoxic drugs – en mass, our society’s weakest members? Today’s pedophile empowering psychologists and psychiatrists are participating in social injustice, not “social justice.”
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Thanks for bringing this crucially important issue and article to our attention!
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In my experience most psychologists aren’t interest much in “social justice”. The only helping profession within the mental health realm I know of who have emphasized “social justice” are social workers. The rest of us rarely deal with the macro issues that social workers tackle. The psychologists who I’ve interacted with over the years are heavily trained in the medical model dogma of diagnosing and patghologizng. They typically don’t address the systemic problems in society in any meaningful way. But hey they can interpret ink blot tests for you! So there’s something I guess.
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Given all the brain-cramp inducing mental masturbation here, all the gobbledygook and psychobabble, there’s one big elephant in the room that’s getting ignored. So-called “social justice” is nothing more than individual-scale justice scaled up to the Society level. And ALL adult persons were once children. And, in a wide variety of ways, MOST children experience some form(s) of abuse, from mile to extreme. Verbal, emotional, psychological, and mild physical abuse are typically seen as the milder forms, with sexual and violent physical abuse as the more severe. And in most abusive families, there’s some effort to cover-up, and “normalize” the abuse, which the children wittingly or unwittingly participate in. Sexual abuse, and violent physical abuse, are especially to be covered up, and not spoken about. Thus it’s easy to dismiss children’s complaints and concerns, often by discrediting or invalidating the child. Given the pervasiveness of these dynamics, it’s easy to see how generation after generation, a SICK SOCIETY is created and maintained. And thus are the structures of a sick society created and maintained. Psychology and psychoanalysis too often put window dressing and heavy curtains on windows that should be open to let the light in. And psychiatry STIGMATIZES and DRUGS the victims, with bogus “mental illness” labels, and potent neuro-toxins. Thus the sick society is perpetuated. There can NEVER truly be any so-called “social justice”, until and unless individual justice is advanced. There can NEVER truly be any so-called “social justice”, until and unless SOCIAL justice is advanced. It’s not an “either/or”. That’s the trap of DUALITY, as best expressed in Buddhist philosophy, which the West ignores at best, and rejects at worst. What psychology, (and what little actual psychoanalysis still exists,), MOST NEED to do, is stop trying to be psychiatry’s little brother with dreams and delusions of grandeur, stop pushing for “prescribing rights”, drop the gobbledygook and psychobabble, and GET REAL. Real people have real problems, but imaginary “mental illnesses” should NOT be part of that. Psychiatry and its’ poison pills have done, and continue to do, far more harm than good. And sadly, psychology trails right along behind.
(c)2018, Tom Clancy, Jr., *NON-fiction
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âHow does psychological theorizing, research, or interventions help create social, cultural, political, and economic arrangements that permit individuals to participate on an equal level with their peers?â
Psychologists could start by looking into a mirror at their own faces and noticing how they have the same anatomical features as every other human being under the Sun. Which can, from a felt-sense perspective of being human, rather than a theoretical, conceptual notion, undermine the psychological worldview that we are all so very different.
Even though, every day psychologists will see, like everyone else, that no matter the color of our skin, every human being under the Sun has white teeth and a pink tongue. Yet due to the psychological-blindness of our early life adaptation to the communication-oriented skills of numeracy and literacy, we all fail to see an obvious equality.
But life is a competitive game of survival and we must go along to get along in this social world of consensus reality. And just like in the movie Fight Club, the first rule of the game is . . . . .
“They are playing a game. They are playing at not playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I shall break the rules and they will punish me. I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game.” -R. D. LAING, Knots
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After making comment on the Trump Anxiety Disorder is Fake News post by Chris Coombs, I was looking out on a limb with my views.
But, albeit in a much less developed way, they do kinda align with Thrift and Sugarman.
It seems crazy that at this stage of the game there isn’t a coherent understanding or consensus about what social justice means, or even looks like. But I agree that it shouldn’t look like a backdoored medical model in psychotherapeutic contexts.
Probably the biggest problem is the depoliticised landscape. It started here with Thatcher, and Rupert Murdoch, and changing the working class culture from collective to individualist.
There seems to be a natural tendency for oppressed social groups to veer towards the left. So the “safe spaces” are by and large forbidden from engaging in or encouraging political discourse. If this isn’t adhered to the organisation risks losing its charity status, and funding.
Goes to show how the banner of social justice can be waved by psychologists who are effectively promoting an individualist agenda.
The only possible way I can see to subvert these problems and get the better of the situation is through the encouragement, by psychologists, of collective art-forms, such as theatre and film, of the disruptive kind.
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Easy to deduce what social justice means to psychologists. It means they’ll all get raises without having to do any more work.
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This is a wonderful article. We can learn from this and guide our children.
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