Black psychology is the project of overall Black understanding of self, society, and the world. It not only focuses on the arrangement and functioning of personality but also points to the possibilities of its unlimited expansion/interaction on a social level. The interest of Black psychology revolve around the development of a field that studies the behavioral patterns of Black persons and seeks to alter them into self-conscious agents of their mental liberation. The above stated came forth through an acute critique and rejection of white psychology in terms of its methodological conclusions and the ideological premises it tests.

sychology has its origins in the 1920’s when Francis Summer became the first Black Ph.D. in psychology. Blacks were fed up with the racist charges of inferiority and felt they needed to make a change, they began to publish research to disprove those charges. Black psychologists began to push for stronger departments of psychology in Black schools, in an attempt to provide better psychological knowledge and services to the Black community. The Black psychologists caucus was established with the goals of promoting and teaching psychology in Black schools, to encourage study, to explore and exchange, to set up credentials for psychology teachers, and to aid Black institutions in training and selecting psychologists. In the 60’s the resurgence of Black Nationalism and its Black Power expression encouraged Black caucuses within traditionally white oriented professional institutions. In 1968 the association of Black Psychologists (ABP) was founded because of the criticism of the American Psychological Association (APA). The APA was said to have a limited vision and an unconscious cooperation of the racially prejudiced character of American society. In the 1970s the first publications in the area of Black psychology appeared. They felt that; “Black psychologist...have finally broken the symbolic relationship with white psychology.” (Pg. 443) Black psychology has set forth new definitions, conceptual models, and test theories that come from the heart of the Black experience. The history of the Association of Black Psychologist (ABP) indicate the development of divergent but overlapping schools of Black psychology, these schools are the traditional, reformist, and radical schools.

The next school is the reformist school; it represents a period of historical evolution as well as current bearing. It sustains some concern for white attitudes and behavior but concentra

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