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

This book presents a sociological study of clinical psychology in the UK. Professor Martyn Pickersgill demonstrates how policy and governance shape and are shaped by clinical practices, structuring access to – and exclusion from - psychological care and influencing how mental ill-health is understood.

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.