New Book Blog! Liberating Psychology

Melissa Rudie, DO | AIAMC Member, Participant in AIAMC National Initiative IX 

“To do liberation psychology requires first, to liberate psychology.”  Ignacio Martin-Baro.

After hundreds of years of colonialism and neocolonialism, our world is oversaturated with misery and rage. War, violent crime, poverty and malnutrition, political corruption, racial discrimination, substance misuse, sex trafficking, environmental destruction, etc. are rampant.  Globalization has created displacement which undermines cultures and families. 

We, as a society, find ourselves at a loss with how to deal with and alleviate these countless sufferings. We are constrained within an episteme that does not allow for new ideas, movements, or dreams. One the most profound problems we have is that many people do not have viable ideas of what could be done to make a change in their lives or in their communities.  In psychology this phenomenon is referred to as “fatalism.”  It is a despondent sense that social networks, values, and customs are lost or forgotten. Any attempt to imagine a new or more vibrant social world seems hopeless. 

Where do we go from here?

In these pessimistic environments, psychologies and bodies of thought with a basis in regeneration are needed. Imagination is integral to this process and is a phenomenon that can only occur within communities of resilience. Imagination allows for isolated and exhausted social structures to have new possibilities. Creating conditions for social and personal regeneration is one of the central psychological tasks of our era.

We need to liberate psychology and free ourselves from the current episteme. 

What is Liberation Psychology?

Liberation psychology is a body of thought and practice that challenges Western-based psychology and focuses on the experiences of the oppressed. It encourages empowerment, healing, and transformation. 

Liberation psychology originated in Latin American during several emancipatory movements. It is most often associated with Ignacio Martin Baro, a Jesuit priest working on social reform in El Salvador. He was assassinated during the Universidad Centroamericana Jose Simeon Canas (UCA) massacre in 1989. 

One of the goals of liberation psychology is to create awareness of discrimination, inequality, and inequity to better foster change, promote cultural identity, and alleviate human suffering.  Since liberation psychology is a community-based psychology, with its roots in Latin American, its use in the clinical field is not well known.

Next Steps 

It is important to create communities of resistance where justice and peace prevail. It is within these communities that the dominant culture and dehumanizing forces can be resisted. These communities allow for interconnections, imagining of new possibilities, and dialogue can be allowed to flourish. Dialogue is a capacity that needs to be cultivated and unfortunately our society has long neglected this art. Creating dialogue within ourselves and our communities will allow us to move from by standing to compassionate engagement. With dialogue we can move toward difference, not with denial, but with vulnerability and deeper understanding of our interconnectedness. Dialogue requires a sort of mental agility to de-center from oneself and take on the perspective of another.

“The capacity for inner dialogue is a touchstone for outer objectivity” Carl Jung 1969.

Once dialogue is established within a community, dreaming of a different and utopic world becomes possible. It is through understanding of our shared brokenness that visions of what is deeply desired can be created. During the Cold War and nuclear arms race between the US and Soviet Union many citizens lost their ability to imagine an ongoing world. In response to this Elise Boulding, inspired by works written by Fred Polak, created workshops called “imaging a world without weapons.” Participants would imagine a utopic world 30 years in the future, free from the threat of nuclear weapons. Then the participants would be asked to imagine backward in five year increments important milestones that would need to be reached for that utopia to become a reality. 

In closing consider these questions to help fuel imaginative dreaming. What is an issue (personal, local, state, national, international, etc.) that needs to be addressed? How would you transform one (or more) of those issues? Do not think about limitations, instead imagine the best outcome, from your perspective, for the issue(s) at hand.  

Brief Bio

Melissa Rudie is an Internal Medicine Resident at OhioHealth Doctors Hospital in Columbus Ohio. Melissa works closely with the OhioHealth Community Clinic for AIAMC National Initiative IX and serves on multiple committees within OhioHealth. Additionally, Melissa is interested in pursuing a fellowship in hematology/oncology. Outside of medicine, she enjoys exploring Columbus restaurants, reading a good fictional story, and is an avid video gamer.

References 

• Comas-Díaz, L., & Torres Rivera, E. (2020). Liberation psychology: Theory, method, practice, and social justice. American Psychological Association. 

• Watkins, M., & Shulman, H. (2008). Toward psychologies of Liberation. Palgrave Macmillan. 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-rudie-87a61994