The Purpose of Psychosocial Studies

This chapter is about the prospects for Psychosocial Studies as a new academic discipline or subject-area. It will ask about the conditions which have enabled previous academic developments of this kind to succeed. Its central argument is that this has usually been where a new field has fulfilled social purposes beyond those of the academy itself. Such disciplines have given definition and form to values and interests located within different spheres of society. I am first going to discuss the examples of sociology and psychology, since it is in reaction to the contrary constraints of those fields that Psychosocial Studies has emerged, challenging the human adequacy of both of them. As with the other major social science disciplines, governments have had a large role in their promotion and establishment, though currents in civil society have had their part in this too. The social sciences have tended to see themselves as having a largely emancipatory social role. But there have been significant critiques of their functions and effects by Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno and by Michel Foucault. Advocates of Psychosocial Studies may wish to consider whether their field is to be understood as bringing potential benefit to humankind, and if so, in what ways? I am secondly going to consider the examples of three smaller and more recent intellectual initiatives, mainly from a UK perspective. These are Leavisite English Studies built around the journal Scrutiny (1934–1953); Cultural Studies, originating at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in Birmingham (1964–2002); and the intellectual movement which came to be called Science Technology and Society, or STSScience Technology and Society (STS), the social scientific study of the practices of the natural sciences and technology. Each of these initiatives has achieved a significant influence, though none of them have become established academic disciplines, as for example sociology, psychology, and anthropology had long since done. All three of these fields have distinctive theoretical and methodological foundations. But they have also all depended on having had connections with social and cultural movements outside the academy. My suggestion is Psychosocial Studies will only succeed in establishing itself as a new academic field if it is also fulfilling such broader social purposes. At the end of this chapter, I will suggest how one might begin to identify what these might be. I hope that readers might be able to find parallels to the examples of intellectual movements I have given here, located perhaps in different national contexts. But perhaps the most important question to ask of Psychosocial Studies is about its purpose. Why should we want to see this field grow and develop?