Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, Vol 44(3), Aug 2024, 159-175; doi:10.1037/teo0000212
A decolonial psychology requires both a critical analytic for the evaluation of psychological states under coloniality and a direction for disruption of these states. In the following, I propose that Gayatri Spivak’s deconstructive analytic of the subaltern condition can be developed to provide both. Through the discursive formations of classical Freudian and relational psychoanalytic readings of transference resistance and the relational matrix, the condition of subalternity is reproduced across psychotherapeutic orientations in treating the postcolonial subject. As a direction to disrupt this condition, Antonio Gramsci’s concept of hegemony and the hegemonic provide a conceptualization for decolonial psychological praxis. From this conceptualization, three points are provided: (a) patients must have established lines of power (i.e., hegemonic legitimacy) within the institutionality of psychology; (b) patients must have movement organization re-presenting and representing the counter-hegemony to the psychological establishment; and (c) patients must have lines of communication between the singular subject and both the institutionality of psychology and the broader patient movement organization. As a concretization of this conceptualization, the work of Fanon is briefly reviewed as directed toward singular subjective and networked collective action against social and psychological colonialism. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)