 | This article may lend undue weight to certain ideas, incidents, or controversies. (May 2023) |
Indian psychology refers to an emerging scholarly and scientific subfield of psychology. Psychologists working in this field are retrieving the psychological ideas embedded in indigenous Indian religious and spiritual traditions and philosophies, and expressing these ideas in psychological terms that permit further psychological research and application. 'Indian psychology' in this sense does not mean 'the psychology of the Indian people', or 'psychology as taught at Indian universities'. The Indian Psychology Movement refers to psychologists encouraging or carrying out the recently expanded activity in this field.
Although some research scholarship in this field occurred as early as the 1930s, activity intensified after the Manifesto on Indian Psychology[1] was issued in 2002 by more than 150 psychologists gathered in Pondicherry, India, led by K. Ramakrishna Rao, Girishwar Misra, and others. Since the issuance of the Manifesto, psychologists active in this field have produced scholarly and scientific publications that include a textbook, a handbook, several other edited volumes, a journal special issue, and a variety of other books and journal articles. Conferences on Indian psychology have been held in several Indian cities, sometimes drawing scores of presentations.
Topics addressed by Indian psychology research and scholarship have included conceptions or processes relevant to values, personality, perception, cognition, emotion, creativity, education, and spirituality as well as applications such as meditation, yoga, and ayurveda, and case studies of prominent spiritual figures and their legacies. Indian psychology subscribes to methodological pluralism and especially emphasizes universal perspectives that pertain primarily to a person's inner state, and are not otherworldly, religious, or dogmatic, and with special emphasis on applications that foster the positive transformation of human conditions toward achievement and well-being. Indian psychology views itself as complementary to modern psychology, capable of expanding modern psychology's limits, and capable of being integrated with many parts of modern psychology. Other scholarly and scientific fields that are relevant to Indian psychology and often partly overlap with it include modern scientific psychology, neurophysiology, consciousness studies, and Indian philosophy and religion.