The unstated question is: why is there a need to use the adjective African psychology instead of simply taking all psychology done in Africa on Africans and non-Africans as psychology, period? What some scholars seek to do with the term ‘African’ is to distinguish between different ways of thinking about Africa, being African, and psychology. Arising out of this quest, again usually implied rather than explicitly stated, are to be found attempts to differentiate between psychology that identifies with or empathetically centres Africa, and a neutral psychology that approaches Africa as one object among others. As such, while all psychology that is taught, studied, published and applied in South Africa, just as in other African countries, is of course African psychology, the effort has been to surface psychology teaching, research and applications that consciously identify themselves with Africa. The latter is what is sometimes referred to as African-centred/Afrocentric psychology. Wade Nobles has this to say about this distinction:

Even when the distinction has been made clear, the questions we pose about Africa, Africans, the West and psychology will tend to close down or open up how we think of an African psychology. Thus it is necessary to recognise that the term ‘African psychology’ is contingent, can have multiple meanings, and, in countries like South Africa, is overladen with the political history of colonialism and apartheid racism. The term ‘African psychology’ will therefore have to be always contingently embraced by students, teachers, researchers and therapists, even as psychological work from different countries of Africa remains in need of strengthening – in some countries, like The Gambia and Equatorial Guinea for instance, considerably more so than in others. Strengthening African psychology is a gargantuan task.