Klaus Holzkamp (30 November 1927,

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

– 1 November 1995, Berlin) was a German psychologist.

Research

Klaus Holzkamp worked as a professor at the

Free University of Berlin The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public research university in Berlin, Germany. It is consistently ranked among Germany's best universities, with particular strengths in political science and t ...

. He took a central role in defining

critical psychology Critical psychology is a perspective on psychology that draws extensively on critical theory. Critical psychology challenges the assumptions, theories and methods of mainstream psychology and attempts to apply psychological understandings in diffe ...

based on the works of

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

and Aleksei N. Leontiev. Holzkamp's main message is that mainstream psychology serves the interest of the power elite by disregarding the ability of humans to change their life circumstances. In a standard scientific study in the field of psychology the test setting is taken as a given, unchangeable fact, while in real life people may organize themselves and transform society. He worked and lived together with his wife Christine Holzkamp-Osterkamp.

Pupils

Holzkamp's ideas have been conserved and transformed by several younger academic teachers like Karl-Heinz Braun (UAS Magdeburg), Ole Dreier, Barbara Grüter (U. of Bremen), Manfred Günther (SFBB), Wilhelm Kempf (U. of Konstanz), Wolfgang Maiers (U. of

Magdeburg Magdeburg (; nds, label=Low Saxon, Meideborg ) is the capital and second-largest city of the German state Saxony-Anhalt. The city is situated at the Elbe river. Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the Archdiocese of Magdebu ...

, Morus Markard, Rainer Seidel or Irmingard Staeuble (all three: FU of Berlin).

Selected works

German books: * ''Kritische Psychologie - Vorbereitende Arbeiten'' (1972) * ''Grundlegung der Psychologie'' (1983) * ''Lernen. Subjektwissenschaftliche Grundlegung'' (1993)

References

External links

* Teo, T. (2000)
Klaus Holzkamp
In A. E. Kazdin (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Psychology. Vol. 4 (pp. 141–142). New York: Oxford University Press. * Teo, T. (1998)
Klaus Holzkamp and the rise and decline of German Critical Psychology
History of Psychology, 1 (3) 235-253 * 1927 births 1995 deaths German psychologists Educational psychologists 20th-century psychologists {{Germany-psychologist-stub