About IncLab
IncLab is located within a counseling psychology program whose work bears the additional influence of critical and philosophical psychology. Principles from both those traditions can be seen in our scholarship. The summaries below are taken from the mission statements of The Society of Counseling Psychology (APA Division 17) and The Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology (APA Division 24).
Counseling Psychology
The Society for Counseling Psychology shares a commitment to a holistic psychological perspective that is strengths-based, person- and community-centered, systems-oriented, contextually aware, multiculturally inclusive, socially just, and integrative of vocational and lifespan issues.
Counseling psychology values include:
- Considering context in conceptualizing individuals, communities, problems, and interventions
- Fostering theory and research that rely on diverse methods and approaches
- Developing and implementing research, practice, training, and policies that are culturally relevant and sensitive to the needs of international populations and organizations.
Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology
The Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology encourages and facilitates informed exploration and discussion of psychological theories and issues in both their scientific and philosophical dimensions and interrelationships.
The Society engages the philosophical and metatheoretical dimensions of psychology. The Society [is]... committed to representing and fostering diverse perspectives regarding ontological, epistemological, ethical, and critical issues within disciplinary psychology.
Included in the Society's diverse forms of inquiry are conceptual, speculative, theoretical, empirical, clinical, historical, literary, and cultural research.
How these principles have shaped our work
We study the ways that conventional theories and assumptions about knowledge-creation and expertise can hinder our understanding of injustice and our attempts to address it.
"How is race constituted within the [health disparities] literature, and what is the impact of this discursive construction? What interests are served by this particular way of investigating race, even when it is employed by pro-equity psychologists? What light can it shed on the operation of similar assumptions throughout other areas of psychological research?... [W]e will ground this analysis within Foucauldian concepts of discourse as communicative actions that reproduce hierarchies of dominance (Foucault, 1980) and with whiteness explicated as the dominance structure in question (Mills, 1997; Yancy, 2004)." (Smith, Madon, Gordon, Asencio, Xu, & Sheffey, 2023, p. 2 / Psychology, Race, and the 'Politics of Truth'")
We endorse the indispensable value of interdisciplinary scholarship and sources to an appropriately contextualized, critical, sociohistorical understanding of social problems.
"In many instances, the theoretical foundations cited in this article come from disciplines outside psychology. They derive from fields like philosophy, literature, and social criticism, which can be broadly described as the humanities... [P]sychologists and other researchers can advance the study of whiteness and race in their fields by overcoming the traditional segregation of academic disciplines." (Smith, Xu, Asencio, & Travino, manuscript under review / Whiteness and the Racism-Related Research Agenda)
We study the impact of psychological attention (or lack thereof) to social class and poverty upon our services and upon public policy more broadly.
"How are economic conditions such as these relevant for attention and advocacy within the field of psychology? At first glance, the topic of living wage legislation may seem to be an issue that is outside the scope of psychological commentary. However, findings from several related areas of psychological scholarship can be juxtaposed meaningfully with these economic considerations." (Smith, 2015, p. 559 / Reforming the Minimum Wage: Toward a Position for Psychology)
We value qualitative and participatory methods as ways of amplifying the knowledge and experiences of individuals who are often studied but rarely included as knowledge-producers.
"As researchers interested in issues of poverty and social class, we believe that the expansion of frameworks of interpersonal oppression to encompass class-based discrimination is crucial.... Our intention was to make use of a methodology that would allow us to begin building knowledge in this area from the voices of poor and working-class people themselves.' (Smith, Mao, & Deshpande, 2016, p. 132 / Talking Across Worlds: Classist Microaggressions and Higher Education)
We have collaborated with dozens of schools and community-based organizations in participatory action research (PAR) projects.
"PAR is best-known as a methodological approach in which university researchers do not conduct studies on community members; rather, they conduct studies with community members. The word participatory, therefore, refers to the collaboration of all these stakeholders in identifying, studying, and creating knowledge about issues of local importance, while the word action signifies the initiation of positive local change based upon this knowledge. Participatory research collaborations hold promise for shared agency in the creation and expression of knowledge—a sphere of influence that has traditionally belonged almost entirely to academicians, professional researchers, and other privileged groups." (Smith, Shenk, Tran, Poon, Wahba, & Voegtli, 2017, p. 413 / “There’s not a rug big enough to hide us under": Participatory Action Research as Anti-Ageist Psychological Practice)