Discursive psychology is the broad title for a range of research done in different disciplinary contexts – communication, language, sociology and psychology. It moves the theoretical and analytic focus from individual cognitive events and processes to situated interaction. This work is critical of, and developing a progressive, analytically based alternative to, mainstream cognitive social psychology. Discursive psychology (occasionally DP) also counters the social psychological view of the individual as part of a matrix of abstract social processes, and replaces it with a focus on people’s everyday practices in various institutional settings. This entails an important change in analytic focus; rather than whether, or how accurately, participants’ talk reflects inner and outer events, DP investigates how ‘psychology’ and ‘reality’ are produced, dealt with and made relevant by participants in and through interaction. Articles in this Special Issue will, therefore, take various social and psychological categories and consider their role in specific interactional settings. Our aim here is to set out three main strands of contemporary discursive psychology as a way of emphasizing some of the exciting and progressive features of the collection presented in this volume.