Palgrave Studies in the Theory and History of Psychology Series Editor: Jack Martin, Burnaby Mouthain Endowed Professor of Psychology, Simon Fraser University, Canada This book represents the first attempt to historicise and theorise appeals for �relevance� in psychology. It argues that the persistence of questions about the �relevance� of psychology derives from the discipline�s terminal inability to define its subject matter, its reliance on a socially disinterested science to underwrite its knowledge claims, and its consequent failure to address itself to the needs of a rapidly changing world. The chapters go on to consider the �relevance� debate within South African psychology, by critically analysing discourse of forty-five presidential, keynote and opening addresses delivered at annual national psychology congresses between 1950 and 2011, and observes how appeals for �relevance� were advanced by reactionary, progressive and radical psychologists alike. The book presents, moreover, the provocative thesis that the revolutionary quest for �social relevance� that began in the 1960s has been supplanted by an ethic of �market relevance� that threatens to isolate the discipline still further from the anxieties of broader society. With powerful interest groups continuing to co-opt psychologists without relent, this is a development that only psychologists of conscience can arrest. .