Foucault's Social, Community, and Cultural Psychology

In today's debate about a user oriented humanistic turn in the field of mental health care, the early Foucault is once again relevant. In his works from 1954 Foucault shows that the root of understanding mental phenomena is not to be found in universal medical concepts and methods, but in the reflection on lived experiences and in the human being itself. In accordance with contemporary social, community, and cultural psychologists, such as Brinkmann, Kinderman and Prilleltensky, Foucault is critical to the psychology's medical foundations. Instead of focusing on medical and physiological matters he suggests that psychology, as a discipline, should be more user oriented, and focus more on the human being itself, and on social and cultural contexts.