Let us return to the question, what does it mean to say African in African psychology ought to be unspoken? What, precisely, is African psychology?

To better appreciate the answers to these questions, let us begin with the second question first.

Confusion abounds within and around the meaning of African psychology. One answer to the question is: African psychology is not American psychology. That much is clear. Another answer: African psychology is not European psychology. That is obvious too.

Beyond that – we have fog and friction.

I know why European and US psychologists – as well as Euroamerican-centred psychologists in Africa and elsewhere outside of Europe and the US – who subscribe to psychology as seen from Euroamerican psychological perspectives might be confused. Because of their own confusion they are usually confusing when they try to say something about African psychology. To believe that African psychology is a special type of psychology is to be confused.

I know why much of what is written by African and African American psychologists who champion African psychology also does not make the concept easy to comprehend. Euroamerican psychology has been very effective in creating a great deal of the confusion among African students, therapists and teachers and the general public, let alone among white European and US students, teachers and therapists. One of the major confusions is that Euroamerican psychology is psychology, and anything else is (blank) psychology – where (blank) stands for any ‘indigenous’, othered and supposedly non-standard psychology which is not real psychology. Euroamerican psychology, apparently, is indigenous to nowhere. It is a body of knowledge with neither origin nor home.

Regarding the first question, African in African psychology is what exists, at the best of times, when African psychology is not on the defensive, a term in brackets: (African) psychology. In other words, when African psychology is psychology. Paradoxically, the best African psychology is therefore knowledge and practice that begin from consciousness-raising about ways of seeing people's lives – from the birth of a baby to the moment of death – through Africa's window; knowledge and practice that, over time, become unconscious. The best African psychological perspective is one that has settled at the unselfconscious level and does not name itself.