Configuring Psychology: Access to Therapy and the Transformation of Psychological Care - Softcover

Pickersgill, Martyn

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1108714226 ISBN 13: 9781108714228

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2026

Synopsis

Configuring Psychology offers a vibrant, multimodal sociological analysis of clinical psychology as a profession and practice in the UK. Starting from the widely-accepted principle and goal of enhancing access to care, it examines how political, economic, legal, and social dynamics intertwine with clinical norms and expertise. These interactions configure broader healthcare contexts, defining not only entry into therapy but also exclusion from it. Through close attention to policy developments, professional strategies, and psychologists' experiences, Martyn Pickersgill reveals how access reforms shape clinical knowledge, therapeutic practice, and understandings of psychology itself. He shows how expanding access has become both a moral imperative and a managerial project, with clinical psychologists balancing competing bureaucratic, ethical, and emotional demands in an increasingly strained NHS. As such, Configuring Psychology provides essential insights for social scientists as well as clinicians and policymakers navigating reform. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

About this title

About the Author

Martyn Pickersgill is Professor of the Sociology of Science and Medicine, University of Edinburgh. Known internationally for his scholarship on the sociology of psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience, he is an elected Fellow of the UK Academy of Social Sciences and winner of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Henry Duncan Medal.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1108714226
• ISBN 13: 9781108714228
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 226