Making the interpersonal political: Social therapeutics and psy knowledge

This introduction to the special section of History of Psychology argues for the centrality of the interpersonal-as an object of psychological knowledge, a condition of knowledge production, and as a site of social intervention and transformation-in the history of psychotherapy and of the psy sciences more generally. We situate this focus within broader historiographical and sociological debates and feminist historiography. The articles that make up this section revisit episodes where the psychological disciplines were employed to critique, challenge, or otherwise subvert existing power structures and dynamics. They highlight two aspects that have been neglected in the literature: the political projects of psychological practitioners and the ways in which these actors viewed or treated the interpersonal as a site of scalable social interventions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).