The project I present in this book grew out of a series of “Theory–Practice–Conferences” in which researchers and practitioners, coming from the tradition of critical psychology, met twice a year, mostly in Berlin, for a period of more than ten years to study psychological practices. These conferences pursued two related goals. The first objective was to study the conduct of psychological practice, broadly taken, in order to become able to describe and understand it better and thereby find better ways to conduct it. As a means to that end, we developed a guideline, the so-called practice-portrait (Markard and Holzkamp 1989), for the analysis of professional psychological practices. The second aim was to work out a better understanding of how to base the conduct of psychological practice on a theoretical conception, that is, of how to use concepts as a basis for analysis and conduct and, at the same time, to utilize the analyses of issues in practice to foster the development of concepts and theories. My project was presented and discussed several times at these conferences.

It was also inspired by my involvement for many years in collaborations between university-based researchers and psychology practitioners in Denmark, many of whom had a strong interest in critical psychology. Thus, I had collaborated for some time with members of the staff at the outpatient unit of child psychiatry where this project took place. It also grew out of my activities as a therapist, supervisor, trainer, and teacher.