Psychology Serving Humanity ─ Western Psychology

This is the second of two volumes collecting the key proceedings of the 30th International Congress of Psychology, the first to be held in Africa in the 123 years of its history. The theme of the conference was "Psychology Serving Humanity", a recognition of psychology's unfulfilled mission in the majority world and a reflection of what that world requires from psychology.

Mainstream Psychology finds its largest number of exponents and leading personalities in the high income countries of the global West. The Other Psychologies, referred to by different names, are scattered across the rest of the world. Some of the names of these other forms of Psychology include indigenous Psychology. The main driver of indigenous and other forms of non-mainstream Psychology is the endeavour to embed the discipline in the dynamics of local societies.

Psychology has entered an interesting era, however. While the dominant philosophy underpinning the discipline remains Western, Psychology in the majority world in 2000s may have reached a tipping point. It took over a hundred years but the 2004 and 2012 International Congresses of Psychology held in China and South Africa heralded a newfound possibility for the discipline. There is an opening of the field to potentially new thought and forms of the practice of Psychology. These proceedings are published in the hope that all psychologists, especially those located in well-resourced institutions in the West, confront the divided reality that characterizes Psychology so as to creatively consider the opportunity opened up by the growing field at the peripheries.

Care was taken when assembling both conference and proceedings to ensure that the entire international psychological community was represented. Volume One contains contributions to Majority World Psychology. Volume Two contains contributions to Western Psychology.

Saths Cooper is President of the International Union of Psychological Science.

Kopano Ratele is Professor and Co-Director of the Institute for Social and Health Sciences at the University of South Africa.