To arrive at even the barest elements of a definition of ‘critical psychology’ we need to develop a cultural-historical account of the emergence of different ‘critical’ tendencies, and we have to make ‘critical links’ between the many activities that define themselves as critical. Our conception of ‘boundaries’ then needs to be questioned if we are to be able to collect these tendencies and activities together; boundaries which divide those who are inside from those outside the discipline, which divide academics, professionals and users of services, and divide those who are properly and improperly critical. With a broadest most generous vision of what constitutes the foundations of critical psychology, I will review developments ‘inside’ psychology, then move on to give an account of critical work ‘outside’ before turning to activities operating ‘in and against’ the discipline. Then we arrive, in the final section, at four characteristics which might define the contradictory field of ‘critical psychology’.
