1 43 ‘CRITICAL PSYCHOLOGY IN ASIA’: FOUR FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS Anup Dhar Marx writes in the section on ‘The Method of Political Economy’ in the Grundrisse: ‘even the most abstract categories, despite their validity – precisely because of their abstractness – for all epochs, are nevertheless, in the specific character of this abstraction, themselves likewise a product of historic relations, and possess their full validity only for and within these relations’ (1993: 105). Marx had in mind the category of labour. Mind, psyche, reason, madness, health, as also Asia are however no exceptions. They are also the product of historical relations and they possess their full validity only for and within these relations. Medicine, psychiatry, psychology and the clinic also need to be seen within the ‘historical constitution of [their] own practices’ and the ‘political-economic conditions in which [they] became possible’ (Parker 2011:1) as also the discourse within which they grew roots (Foucault 2006). The ‘invention of the mind’ by Descartes as ‘mirror of nature’ (Rorty 1979: 357) and the ‘Cartesian progression of doubt’ as the condition of the ‘great exorcism of madness’ (Foucault 2006: 244) would therefore serve as philosophical signposts and historical roadmaps in our foray into critical psychology in Asia. Critical Psychology in the Rest of the World This paper is faced with a dual problem – the problem of ‘critical psychology’ and the problem of ‘Asia’. One may ask: why are these two seen as a problem? Primarily because I do not wish to take them as a priori or as given; and I believe the dialectical relation between the two shall give me a sense of what I could call critical psychology in Asia. I wish to ask: what is critical psychology, ask it yet again, once again, in the context of Asia and ask it in light of the ‘Four Theses and Seven Misconceptions’ (Parker and Burman 2008)? I also wish to ask, what is Asia, again, yet again; in a somewhat interminable manner. Where is the idea of Asia coming from? What are its antecedents? What is the genealogy of Asia (see ‘Imagining Asia: A Genealogical Analysis’ by Wang Hui)? What happens to critical psychology when it comes to Asia? What is the kind of critical psychology that is born in Asia? How many face(t)s of critical psychology are there then in Asia? Between absorbed versions and in-born versions? Between Japan on the one hand, and Turkey on the other, where Turkey could be seen as a promontory of Asia only? Between Buddhist Sri Lanka and communist China? Between a violent Sri Lanka and an equally violent China? Between a westward- facing Japan and Turkey – the first turned towards USA and the second towards Europe? Where is India in all this, given two hundred years of British colonialism? And where are the Philippines, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, and Iran? Further, what are the ‘(four) fundamental concepts’ (see Lacan 1977/1998) of Critical Psychology – between New Zealand, on the one hand and Turkey, on the other? Critical Psychology of the World of the Rest This section of the paper sets up the ‘camera angle’ from which I shall explore and perhaps interrogate the question of critical psychology in and of Asia. I would like to make a