Auto-ethnography and psy-critique in Covid times. A book review essay of Ian Parker’s Psychology through Critical Auto-ethnography

Abstract

ABSTRACT This book review essay of Ian Parker’s Psychology through Critical Auto-ethnography has three objectives. The first is to provide an assessment of Parker’s unique contribution to the field of Critical Psychology. Parker’s critique of the psy-sciences is shown to offer a key challenge not only to mainstream psychology but also to those who envision themselves working in the field of Critical Psychology: how not to relapse in the traps of mainstream psychology and psychologisation? The second objective is to scrutinize Parker’s idiosyncratic use of the methodology of auto-ethnography. Here it is argued, again, that Parker’s appropriation of this method not only is ideally positioned to question the problematic field of mainstream psychology, but also opens up a different perspective on subjectivity and sociality that should challenge Critical Psychology. The third objective is to apply these insights to the Covid crisis: if Parker enjoins us to step outside the psy-complex and “find many other ways to live together without it,” the entry of mainstream psychology into the Covid-debate, claiming expert knowledge on how we should live apart/together, should be confronted head-on. To achieve these three objectives, the author also uses a moderate dose of auto-ethnography.