AASt-201 (September 23, 2002) African Centered Psychology in The Modern Era Instructor Prof Grady Garner Jr.

What is African-centered Psychology: it is the psychology of Blackness that is an attempt to build conceptual models that organize, explain, and facilitate understanding of the psychosocial behavior of African-Americans -based in the primary dimensions of an African-American/African worldview. The first and third edition: the guiding theme was that there was a unique, coherent, persistent psychological perspective or worldview that is uniquely African-American. It can be seen in the: Behavior Attitudes Feelings expressive patterns and values of Black people Furthermore, it provides African-Americans with a way of interpreting reality and relating to others, as well as a general design for living. Counter Positions: ??? Culturally specific psychology this argument is usually grounded in the premise that the theories and constructs of the discipline are or should be universally applicable to the majority of the

population. ??? the perspective and movement are both divisive to the discipline and seeks to advance an anti-White agenda Rebuttal: our own biases and assumptions about the nature of people have been influenced in ways that Devalue and/or otherwise Denigrate any perspective that differs from that on which we have been traditionally trained. The cornerstone of Eurocentric worldview is the application of a difference equals deficiency logic to those things that deviate from the traditional norms established by society. DEFINITIONS Psychology defined by the ancient (Kemetic) Africans: Psychology is the study of the SOUL AND SPIRIT NOBLES (1986) A summary of the reading of our ancient mythology reveals that ancient Egyptian thought can be characterized as possessing (1) ideas of thought which represent the

human capacity to have will and to invent or create; (2) ideas of command which represent the human capacity to have intent and to produce that which one wills. Parenthetically, these two, will and intent, are the characteristics of divine spirit and would serve as the best operationalization of human intelligence. (Nobles, 1986, p.46) The psychology borrowed from Africa popularized in Europe and America (so-called Western psychology), in some respects represents a distortion of ancient AfricanEgyptian thought. You see according Nobles, what the ancients believed was that the study of the soul and spirit was translated by Europeans into the study of one element of a persons psychic nature, the mind. AKBAR (1994) He argues that the Kemetic roots of psychology bear little resemblance to the modern-day constructs.