Critical Health Psychology: Developing and Refining the Approach

Abstract

This article outlines the need for a critical health psychology and how this approach was originally formulated as a challenge to mainstream health psychology. Critical health psychology articulates the need for a more reflexive approach – one that is able to analyse the complex moral, emotional, ethical and political issues underpinning peoples’ experiences of health and illness. This article discusses how critics have responded to the development of critical health psychology, to debates regarding what actually constitutes a critical approach, and finally, to how critical approaches might be refined in future research.