I’m proud to be the president of an organization that represents 146,000 psychologists while advancing psychology’s impact and horizons in the global arena. If we are going to be ethical in our approach to global psychology, we must address context. This means paying attention to history, politics, power, and culture.
Too many of our training programs are exclusively centered on the United States and either never mention other nations or overgeneralize findings from the United States to other nations. Let’s broaden psychology’s horizons and expand the potential impact of our research, practice, teaching, and applied interventions by engaging with international psychology and embracing decolonial psychology.
Highlighting decolonial psychology is one of my presidential initiatives. Decolonial psychology asks us to consider not just the life history of the individual we are working with but also the history of the various collective groups they are a part of, whether that is their nationality, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, or disability. The past informs the present. It is necessary to acknowledge and honor the past if we are to truly see people as whole beings.
Decolonial psychology also calls for an appreciation for indigenous science. We need cultural humility and recognition that the traditional field of psychology is not the only source of knowledge or healing. We need to study, assess, and appropriately apply wisdom and practices that emerge from Indigenous cultures.
— Petition at change.org:Dear APA Board of Directors, President Thema Bryant’s recent article on Decolonization as well as her other statements and responses to concerned members along with APA’s refusal to address the Anti-Zionism/Antisemitism rampant in Division 39 has made membership in APA and Division 39 untenable for many psychologists who are leaving the organization in droves. The rhetoric Dr. Bryant employs represents an ideology that promotes dichotomous thinking and undermines the academic standards, history, research and science of the profession of psychology. The evolution of a discipline needs to build and expand on the great work of its pioneers and not demonize its history by imposing a myopic narrative which will be remembered as the McCarthyism of academia.