Critical Counseling Psychology: A Necessary Lens for the Anomie of Our Time

Abstract

Research suggests that there is widespread suffering in the United States, and that this suffering worsens as inequity worsens. Much suffering does not fit neatly in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). The realities of the addiction crisis, for instance, do not map neatly onto the DSM framework. Similarly, phenomena like belief in conspiracy theories or becoming ensnared in romance scams or online radicalization—all of which have devastating psychological consequences—lack clear diagnostic guidance within the DSM. In this address, I argued that counseling psychology—and psychology broadly—must shift toward critical psychology and structural competence if we are to address the widespread mental health crises we are facing, and that psychological problems may best be understood as the result of anomie. I further argue that understanding the relationship between white people and whiteness through the lens of addiction can help inform how we might attend to these crises in the context of resistance to change.