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Biography

Dr. Heather Macdonald is a core faculty member at Fielding Graduate University. Dr. Macdonald came to academia after years of practice as a clinical psychologist whose work involved community outreach, and individual therapeutic services to children and families in the foster care system and in the juvenile justice system. As a community based clinical psychologist and a person who has lived in Asia and Africa, she has always sought to understand mental health issues within the context of their respective social, economic and political environments and believes that groups and communities are the preferred sites of intervention.

Dr. Macdonald’s work in the U.S. and abroad has led to scholarly research on the interface between culture, justice, relational ethics, clinical practice and post-colonial thought. Her research draws upon a cross-fertilization of ideas and disciplines including phenomenology and psychopolitical theories of embodiment. Her most recent books and articles include the following: African American Young Men and the Diagnosis of Conduct Disorder: The Neo-Colonization of Suffering (2015); Does Psychology “matter”? An analysis of relevance in South African psychology (2017); Race, Rage, and Resistance: Philosophy, Psychology and the Perils of Individualism (2019); and a forthcoming edited volume titled: Neoliberalism, Ethics, and the Social Responsibility of Psychology: Dialogues at the Edge to be published by Routledge.