Originally written for the September 2025 issue of Rochester Red Star.
As socialists, we must be critical of capitalist thought and systems. Even ever-present concepts like free will, intelligence, and mental health cannot be taken for granted. None of these are innate to humanity any more than jobs, money, or socioeconomic class. Psychology, as a scientific discipline and a way of describing human nature, is a product of capitalism. Furthermore, it is a pillar of capitalist and imperialist oppression.
Psychology is defined by the American Psychological Association (APA) as “the study of the mind and behavior.” It is meant to be objective and scientific, and thus above cultural influence. However, deeply ingrained assumptions shaped the field from its inception, and still do. As elsewhere in Western civilization, psychologists put individualism and self-determination on a pedestal. Since Freud, talk therapy has assumed that, with the aid of a formally trained therapist, anyone can identify and manage or resolve the problems in their life. This is by nature incompatible with recognizing systemic factors beyond the individual’s control.
Psychopathology—the categorizing and diagnosis of mental illnesses under a disease model—adds a patronizing, accusatory layer to this already flawed premise. Studies have shown for decades that simply receiving a mental health diagnosis, especially a highly stigmatized one like schizophrenia or borderline personality disorder, often adds stress to a person’s life. And stress is a known factor that exacerbates many such diagnoses.
Besides stigma, psychology concretely reinforces oppression. In addition to the commonplace and horrific racism of medicine in general, concepts such as IQ, the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory and other intelligence and personality assessments have been leveraged to deprive people of color from opportunities such as academic scholarships or occupational support. Many such tools cannot be defended as meaningfully “scientific” when they fail to account for cultural differences, and usually involve subjectivity on the part of the person interpreting them.
Similarly, historical diagnoses such as hysteria have provided justification for misogynist oppression. Records from the nineteenth century often show women were institutionalized for speaking out against their husbands or refusing to have sex with them. In an era where divorce was frowned upon, locking one’s undesired wife up in a sanitorium was a useful way for men to protect their status.
The diagnostic and statistical manual (DSM) sometimes gets invoked to sway court cases, and leaves harsh labels on people in its wake. For example, the “battered women syndrome” legal defense in cases of domestic abuse is strengthened by a DSM diagnosis. The “insanity defense” is rarely invoked because it only leads to a lifetime locked up in a psychiatric institution, rather than a prison.
“Homosexuality”, or later “ego-dystonic sexual orientation,” was listed as a disorder in the DSM until 2013. “Gender dysphoria” remains today, and is a prerequisite for much gender-affirming health care, despite the fact that many transgender people do not actually experience anything like its symptoms.
Again calling into question the objectivity of this discipline—how are such decisions made? Why is it now unacceptable to pathologize a sexual orientation, but acceptable for a gender identity? It’s very hard to argue this has nothing to do with shifting societal tolerances for different queer identities.
Caffeine addiction is acknowledged as real by the scientific community, but omitted from the DSM because it is simply too common. Meanwhile, “process” addictions such as gambling addiction or pornography use addiction are included, despite research so far not substantiating the idea that they actually qualify as such. Chemical addictions have been proven to rewire a user’s brain over time, hence withdrawal. This is not the case for process addictions.
The broadening of autism and its merging with Asperger’s syndrome has helped many people who identify as neurodivergent accept themselves and find community, but it also means the vast majority of available services go to those most high-functioning, and people who qualified for the earlier definition of autism, with serious developmental disabilities that necessitate constant care, are now often deprived, forcing the burden onto their families.
Most changes in new versions of the DSM are influenced far more by corporate drug spending than genuine scientific research. Studies from the last several decades “demonstrating” the efficacy of many medications, such as antidepressants like Lexapro and Zoloft and stimulants like Prozac, have increasingly been found either to improperly follow the scientific method, or to omit, misrepresent, or outright lie about their findings in ways convenient for the sale of psych meds. Doctors’ careers benefit from ghostwritten academic papers and financial deals for giving out free samples. Even the legality of advertising these medications directly to consumers is specific to America.
Related to psychology’s role in the carceral system, it is also important to note that the prison labor industrial complex yielded $11 billion in 2023 in goods and prison maintenance services, according to the ACLU. Other massive industries benefit from psychology as well: for-profit health care insurance companies and weight loss and diet-related industries, to name a couple.
So, as socialists, how should we respond? Several lenses can prove useful. Critical psychology, like other critical theories, calls into question failures to recognize the cultural biases psychology is built on. Critical psychologists believe we have much to learn from collectivist cultures, a commonality with socialism.
Antipsychiatry is another way those who have suffered at the hands of the psychiatric system organize their thinking and activism that has had great success within the disability rights movement. Descendant groups of the consumer/survivor/ex-patient (C/S/X) movement still educate and endorse peer-based interventions, rather than relying on police and medical systems. Peer support is built on the idea that lived experience can be as useful a qualification as formal education.
If you are a client in therapy, work in health care, or catch yourself making judgments informed by psychology in your daily life, consider all of these facts. Don’t blindly accept reality as presented to us by the ruling class and the systems that uphold them. It is only by collective solidarity, not premised on the profit motive or discipline of labor, that we truly become free and well.
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