This book represents the first attempt to historicise andtheorise appeals for 'relevance' in psychology. It argues that the persistenceof questions about the 'relevance' of psychology derives from the discipline'sterminal inability to define its subject matter, its reliance on a sociallydisinterested science to underwrite its knowledge claims, and its consequentfailure to address itself to the needs of a rapidly changing world. The chapters go on to consider the 'relevance' debate within SouthAfrican psychology, by critically analysing discourse of forty-five presidential,keynote and opening addresses delivered at annual national psychologycongresses between 1950 and 2011, and observes how appeals for 'relevance' wereadvanced by reactionary, progressive and radical psychologists alike. The book presents, moreover, the provocative thesis that therevolutionary quest for 'social relevance' that began in the 1960s has beensupplanted by an ethic of 'market relevance' that threatens to isolate thediscipline still further from the anxieties of broader society. With powerfulinterest groups continuing to co-opt psychologists without relent, this is adevelopment that only psychologists of conscience can arrest.