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As we have seen in the two previous chapters, the psychological ways of thinking about people have not just served as passive representations of human subjects, but have in fact deeply influenced how humans think and feel, and indeed influenced human subjectivity itself. Since the birth of psychology, humans have increasingly come to think about themselves in light of psychology's concepts and categories, and their lives have become dependent on psychological technologies such as tests and therapies. Psychology is in the business of "making up people," to use Ian Hacking's catchy phrase (1986). One problem arising from this is sometimes referred to as the reflexive problem: Psychology "is produced by, produces, and is an instance of, its own subject matter" (Richards, 1996:5).

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4419-7067-1_4

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