We have touched on some terms already. Here are other key terms of which to take note, with brief descriptions:

Western/Euroamerican psychology: Western or Euroamerican psychology is all psychology concerning Europe and the US. Euroamerican-oriented psychology is found not only in the US and European countries but all over the world, including Africa. It dominates Africa and the rest of the world. Euroamerican psychology in Africa is also what at times I refer to as psychology-in-Africa (which is to be understood as different from psychology for Africa) in my framework of four orientations in African psychology presented in section 82. Euroamerican psychology puts the experiences of mainly white, Western European and US, middle- to upper-class, usually heterosexual men and women, but also lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersexed (LGBTQI) Westerners, at the centre of its world. Even when it is exported to Africa, Western-centred psychology ultimately serves the economic, political and cultural ends of Europe and the US. In the most general terms, mainstream Euroamerican psychology tends to assume (and, based on this assumption, to pose questions, design studies, make interpretations, offer psychotherapies and prescribe psycho-pharmacological medication that support the assumption) that life experiences have to be better and more satisfying in the capitals of Western Europe and America for a certain economic class of people. Conversely, people in their right mind – meaning psychologically healthy – cannot really have a full, meaningful and satisfying life in Africa or other parts of the world, certainly not if they are money-poor (in contrast to spiritually poor, for example) and do not subscribe to assumptions underpinning mainstream Euroamerican psychology. ‘Euroamerican psychological research has for long served as a rationalising bulwark,’ the great Somali psychologist Hussein Abdilahi Bulhan (1980: 20) observed, ‘stifling consciousness as well as conscience regarding the ruthless exploitation of the African.’

African psychology: There are some people, such as my colleagues at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) – and it is worth mentioning here Nhlanhla Mkhize and Augustine Nwoye – who apparently hold the view that African psychology is a field in psychology (see Mkhize 2004; Nwoye 2015). More specifically, they seem to consider African psychology as a branch of psychology, similar to how psychologists usually think of developmental psychology, neuropsychology, or social psychology.