Liberation psychology

1. Introduction

Version followed: Ignacio Martín-Baró's own writings ("Guerra y salud mental", lecture of 22 June 1984, published in ECA). His 1986 programme essay ("Hacia una psicología de la liberación", Boletín de Psicología (UCA) 5(22):219–231; reprinted in A. Blanco (ed.), Psicología de la liberación, Trotta, 1998; Portuguese translation in the 2011 edition edited by Guzzo & Lacerda Júnior; English in Writings for a Liberation Psychology, Harvard UP, 1994) is followed through the direct quotations, with page numbers, given in two open-access studies: L. A. González (1999, ECA 613–614), quoting the Trotta reprint pp. 295–300, and Pamplona & Mendes (2020), quoting the Portuguese edition pp. 195–196. The essay's three elements (new horizon, new epistemology, new praxis), its three urgent tasks and the key phrases cited below were checked against those quotations. The full essay itself (Spanish or English) is not drawn on here, so any wording those sources do not quote stays [uncertain], and the English chapter headings of the Harvard edition are [uncertain]. Psychosocial trauma (4.2b) and Theatre of the Oppressed (4.9b) rest on secondary sources only. The individual-therapy translation follows Lillian Comas-Díaz's "liberation psychotherapy" (2017), and every clinical procedure drawn from it is labelled as hers.

What it is. Liberation psychology is not a single therapy or a manual. It is a framework and a critical orientation for psychology. It was developed in the 1980s by Ignacio Martín-Baró (1942–1989), a Spanish-born Jesuit social psychologist at the Universidad Centroamericana (UCA), San Salvador, during the Salvadoran civil war. He was murdered with five Jesuit colleagues and two women on 16 November 1989. [source: Dobles; Comas-Díaz 2017; Viera syllabus] He drew on Paulo Freire's conscientization and on liberation theology. He argued that Latin American psychology should stop serving its own status and serve the "popular majorities". [source: Burton 2013, pp. 251–253] There are no phases, session counts or certification. What it offers is a set of tasks, principles and practices that a clinician brings into whatever modality they already use. Comas-Díaz states you do not need to give up your theoretical orientation to practise it. [source: Comas-Díaz 2017]

How change happens. Mental health is treated as a dimension of the relations between people and groups, not only as a state inside the individual. Martín-Baró's phrase is "una dimensión de las relaciones entre las personas y grupos" (a dimension of relations between persons and groups). [source: Martín-Baró 1984, p. 504] Suffering is partly produced and kept in place by oppressive social structures and by ideology. Ideology makes those structures look natural, individual or fated. Fatalism is one example; the "lazy Latino" myth is another. [source: Burton 2013, p. 253; Costa & Mendes 2020] Change comes through conscientization: people decode their reality in dialogue until the mechanisms of oppression become visible. People change as they act to transform that reality, and a new view of the world brings a new view of oneself. [source: Burton 2013, p. 253; Costa & Mendes 2020, summarising Martín-Baró 1996] Recovering historical memory, de-ideologizing everyday experience and strengthening the people's own virtues (the essay's three urgent tasks) turn private suffering into understood, shared and actionable experience. [source for the tasks: Pamplona & Mendes 2020, pp. 669–676, and González 1999, p. 997, quoting Martín-Baró; the link to change: Heitz 2022 abstract; Dobles]

2. Framework

No formal phases exist. Martín-Baró set out tasks and orientations, not a staged protocol, and none of the sources used here gives session numbers or criteria for moving between phases. [source: all sources used; absence noted]

Martín-Baró's tasks for psychology. Items 1–3 are the three "tareas urgentes" (urgent tasks) of the 1986 essay [source: Pamplona & Mendes 2020, pp. 669–676, quoting the essay in Portuguese translation, Martín-Baró 2011, pp. 195–196; González 1999, p. 997, who sources the same three tasks to Martín-Baró's 1990 interview with E. Cabrera]:

Recover historical memory. Without it, Martín-Baró argues, people cannot draw lessons from experience or find the roots of their own identity, and so cannot imagine alternatives. [source: Pamplona & Mendes 2020, p. 670, quoting Martín-Baró 2011, p. 195; González 1999, p. 997]
De-ideologize everyday experience. De-ideologizing means rescuing the original experience of groups and persons ("rescatar la experiencia original de los grupos y personas"), and it should be done, as far as possible, through a process of critical participation. Some secondary accounts name the task "de-ideologizing common sense" (sentido común). [source: González 1999, p. 997, quoting Cabrera 1990, pp. 301–302; Pamplona & Mendes 2020, pp. 672–674, quoting Martín-Baró 2011, pp. 195–196; Barrera Machado 2022 abstract; Dobles]
Strengthen the virtues of the people ("potenciar las virtudes de los pueblos latinoamericanos"; in the Portuguese translation "potencializar as virtudes de nossos povos"). The virtues he names include solidarity in suffering, readiness to give oneself and make sacrifices for the collective good, faith in the human capacity to transform the world, and hope for a future still denied them. [source: Pamplona & Mendes 2020, p. 676, quoting Martín-Baró 2011, p. 196; González 1999, p. 997, quoting Cabrera 1990, p. 302] The English edition's heading for this task (often reported as "utilizing the people's virtues") was not seen [uncertain].
Work differently: change how psychologists work and whom they work for. [Heitz]
Examine psychology's own role: does it support the people or help keep them controlled? [Heitz]

Items 1–3 are confirmed as the essay's three urgent tasks by the direct quotations above. González finds the same three tasks in the 1990 Cabrera interview, so Martín-Baró stated them in both places. Items 4–5 come from the interview Heitz uses (abstract only) [uncertain: wording]. The essay's three elements. The essay also names three elements a liberation psychology needs [source: González 1999, pp. 997–998, quoting the essay in Blanco 1998, pp. 295–300]: (a) a new horizon: psychology must take its attention off itself ("descentrar su atención de sí misma") and turn to the needs of the popular majorities; (b) a new epistemology: the truth of Latin American peoples lies not in their present of oppression but in their tomorrow of freedom, so it has to be made, not only found; (c) a new praxis: "una nueva praxis, una actividad transformadora de la realidad" (a new praxis, an activity that transforms reality). González lists them as first, second and third; the label "three essential elements" comes from other secondary accounts and was not seen in a quoted original [uncertain].

A working sequence for clinicians [synthesis: built from the tasks above and Comas-Díaz's practice. It is not a published protocol.]

Stage	Goal	Typical format	Move on when
A. Accompaniment and contextual engagement	A collaborative relationship that names power; the client's lived experience is heard in its social and historical setting	Individual, family or group; 1–3 sessions inside your usual model	Client can tell their story and the relationship feels safe enough to question "why"
B. Contextual assessment	Map symptoms against conditions: violence, displacement, poverty, discrimination, institutional betrayal; note strengths and collective ties	Folded into intake	Shared formulation that links personal distress to context without denying personal agency
C. Conscientization and de-ideologization	Decode how situations are produced; question fatalistic, self-blaming, naturalising explanations	Ongoing; critical-questioning dialogue	Client spontaneously asks structural questions and self-blame lessens
D. Historical memory and virtues	Reconnect with personal, family and collective history; identify strengths and solidarity	Testimonio, art, memory work, group sessions	Client has a coherent narrative and named resources
E. Action and organisation	Personal and collective action and links to groups and movements; rebuild humanising relations	Client-chosen steps; referral to or partnership with community organisations	Client takes chosen actions and feels some agency
F. Consolidation	Integrate the gains and plan for ongoing pressures	Review sessions	Gains hold; ongoing supports are in place

Stages overlap and repeat. Time-limited services can compress A–C into a few sessions; community and group work may run for months to years. [synthesis]

Formats used in the source traditions [source: Burton 2013, pp. 252–256]:

community psychology led by social movements (Ceará, Brazil), with community therapy built into social groups and collective action
testimony and artistic work
exhumation and reburial with families of the disappeared (Guatemala)
accompaniment of displaced people
campaigns against impunity
therapy with torture survivors (ILAS, Chile), in which suffering moves from private to shared social experience
opinion surveys as research and practice

3. Guiding principles

Preferential option for the oppressed majorities. Psychology's agenda is set by the needs of the poor and oppressed majorities, not by professional status. In practice: ask whose problem you are solving and for whom, and choose work that serves those with least power. [source: Burton 2013, pp. 251–252; González 1999, p. 998, who glosses Martín-Baró's ethical option, in his own words, as "tomar partido por las mayorías populares" (taking the side of the popular majorities)]
Psychology must switch focus from itself. In Burton's translation, Latin American psychology "must switch focus from itself"; González renders the essay's "new horizon" as psychology having to "descentrar su atención de sí misma". In practice: measure your work by its effect on clients' lives, not by its fit with your theory. [source: Burton 2013, p. 252; González 1999, p. 997, citing the essay in Blanco 1998, p. 296]
Judge techniques by whom they serve. Any technique can serve liberation or subjugation. In practice: before you use a method, ask whether it adapts the person to an unjust situation or widens their real options. [source: Burton 2013, p. 252; Costa & Mendes 2020, on Martín-Baró's critique of psychology as an "ideology of reconversion" that adapts the individual to the existing order]
Realism: a "bath of reality". Start from the facts of people's lives rather than fitting reality to imported concepts; Martín-Baró called for "un buen baño de realidad". In practice: get concrete details of the client's material conditions before you apply theory. [source: De la Corte, p. 1097]
Historicity. Bring history back into psychology. In practice: put symptoms and identities in personal, family and collective history, and challenge ahistorical, presentist explanations. [source: De la Corte, p. 1098; Costa & Mendes 2020]
Mental health is relational. Look at mental health "de afuera hacia adentro" (from outside in). In practice: assess relationships, institutions and the social climate as part of the clinical picture. [source: Martín-Baró 1984, p. 504]
Normal reaction to abnormal circumstances. Many war-related reactions are understandable responses, not simply pathology ("una reacción normal ante circunstancias anormales"). In practice: avoid pathologising adaptive responses to violence or oppression, and say so to the client. [source: Martín-Baró 1984, p. 512]
De-ideologizing function. The psychologist analyses common sense and the public discourses that guide behaviour and expose their hidden interests. In practice: question explanations that individualise, naturalise or make fate of social problems. [source: Dobles; De la Corte, p. 1101; Burton 2013, p. 253]
Avoid psychologism. Di Nella reports that, for Martín-Baró, psychologism has strengthened oppressive structures by turning attention from structures to the individual. In practice: do not turn a structural problem into a purely intrapsychic one. [source: Di Nella 2007, p. 48]
Expand autonomy, not control. For Martín-Baró, psychology's aim is to free people by widening their autonomy and real choices, not to predict and control behaviour. In practice: set goals as widened options, not compliance. [source: Dobles]
Critical, not partisan, commitment. Commitment is to the popular majorities, but it stays critical. Psychologists should also examine popular and progressive programmes, not only those of elites. In practice: side with the client's interests without signing up to any party line, and keep questioning. [source: De la Corte, p. 1095; Dobles]
Truth is made, not only found. Martín-Baró wrote that the truth of the popular majorities "no hay que encontrarla sino que hay que hacerla" (is not to be found but made), and that the truth of Latin American peoples lies in their tomorrow of freedom, not in their present of oppression. This is the essay's "new epistemology". In practice: work towards futures the client helps build, not only explanations of past harm. [source: González 1999, p. 998, quoting the essay in Blanco 1998, pp. 298, 300; Dobles, fn. 4; Di Nella 2007, p. 48, contrasting explanation with transformation]
Liberation is a process of dialogue. Liberation is not a single event. It happens in dialogue between catalytic outside agents and oppressed groups. In practice: the therapist questions and accompanies but does not impose analysis. [source: Burton 2013, p. 253]
Strengths of the people. Martín-Baró regretted that psychologists had failed to see the people's rich potential of virtues. In practice: actively look for solidarity, endurance and resourcefulness. [source: Di Nella 2007, p. 53; Dobles]
Acknowledge power, collaborate, accompany. Comas-Díaz describes collaborative relationships that "acknowledge power inequality in relationships, as well as in society". In practice: name the power differences in the room and share decisions. [source: Comas-Díaz 2017]
Holism and integration. Wellbeing is holistic, and liberation work can be combined with any orientation. In practice: add contextual and critical-consciousness work to the model you already use. [source: Comas-Díaz 2017]
Name the silence. Martín-Baró urged researchers to "nombrar el silencio" (name the silence) around their work. In practice: name what the client and the setting are not allowed to say. [source: Dobles; the clinical extension is synthesis]

4. Intervention inventory

Martín-Baró wrote mainly as a social psychologist, researcher and university teacher; he did not publish step-by-step therapy procedures in the sources used. Each entry below names its origin: Martín-Baró's own writing, his practice as reported by others, Comas-Díaz's liberation psychotherapy, or the wider Latin American liberation-psychology field described by Burton. Step-by-step clinical procedures are [synthesis] unless a source is named for them. All example language is illustrative.

4.1 Contextual, relational assessment ("from outside in")

Purpose / when: At intake and at every review. Martín-Baró treats mental health as a quality of relations, assessed from the outside in. He names three wartime features that damage social relations: habitual violence, polarisation, and the "institutional lie" (the institutions meant to protect people are the main source of insecurity). [source: Martín-Baró 1984, pp. 504–508]
Steps [synthesis]:
1. Alongside symptoms, map the client's material conditions: income, housing, work, legal status, exposure to violence, displacement.
2. Map their relational field: family, neighbours, community, institutions (police, employers, schools, health and immigration services). Ask which are trusted and which are feared.
3. Ask specifically about polarisation (being judged by "which side" you are on), forced silence, and experiences of being lied to or endangered by institutions.
4. Note differences in impact by social class, closeness to the conflict and time since the events. Martín-Baró analyses impact along these lines. [source: Martín-Baró 1984]
5. Write a formulation with two columns: "conditions acting on the person" and "the person's responses and resources".
Example language (illustrative): "Before we look at what's happening inside you, can we look at what's been happening around you: at work, with the authorities, in your neighbourhood?" / "Who around you can you speak openly with, and where do you have to keep quiet?"
Watch for / working when: The client starts to see the formulation as fair, neither "it's all me" nor "nothing is mine". Do not let context erase the client's own responsibility and choices.

4.2 Normalising: "a normal reaction to abnormal circumstances"

Purpose / when: With clients exposed to war, political violence, displacement or chronic oppression, who read their reactions as madness or weakness. [source: Martín-Baró 1984, p. 512]
Steps [synthesis]:
1. Gather the specific reactions: hypervigilance, mistrust, numbing, anger.
2. Link each one to the conditions that make it understandable or protective.
3. Say plainly that the reaction makes sense, while still offering help with the parts that now cost the client too much.
4. Separate what to change in the client (where wanted) from what to change in the conditions.
Example language (illustrative): "Being on guard all the time kept you alive when the soldiers came through. It makes sense your body still does it. We can work on easing it here, where it's no longer needed, without calling it a disorder of character."
Watch for: Do not use normalising to skip needed treatment, such as severe PTSD, depression or suicide risk, which still need full assessment and evidence-based care. Martín-Baró also notes that a crisis can sometimes free up new resources and a renewed sense of meaning. You can explore this, but never impose it. [source: Martín-Baró 1984, p. 513]

4.2b Formulating psychosocial trauma (trauma psicosocial)

Purpose / when: With individuals, families and communities affected by prolonged war, political violence or repression. In Martín-Baró's concept of psychosocial trauma the wound is socially produced: its roots lie in society, its nature lies in the interaction between the person and society, and it is kept alive through the person's relations with institutions, groups and other people. He stressed the "carácter dialéctico" (dialectical character) of the wound caused by living through a long war. [source: González & Alejandro, ECA 750, pp. 298–299, citing Martín-Baró 1988 (paraphrase except the quoted phrase); González, Rodríguez & Urrutia, ECA 756, p. 39, paraphrasing Martín-Baró] His 1988 article ("La violencia política y la guerra como causas del trauma psicosocial en El Salvador") and the English chapters in Writings are not drawn on here [uncertain: his own wording and any further claims, such as who is most affected].
Steps [synthesis]:
1. In the formulation, record the traumatic events and the social relations that produced them and still sustain them: who did it, which institutions failed or threatened, what polarisation and silence followed (see 4.1).
2. Ask which current relationships keep the wound open (ongoing threat, impunity, enforced silence, stigma) and which help close it.
3. Assess individual trauma symptoms with standard measures and offer evidence-based trauma treatment where indicated. The psychosocial formulation adds to it; it does not replace it.
4. Plan work at both levels: individual care, plus relational and collective steps (4.13 rebuilding relations, 4.15 collectivising suffering, 4.18 memory and justice).
Example language (illustrative): "What happened to you was done by people and allowed by institutions. Part of healing happens here with me, and part depends on what changes around you."
Watch for: Do not use the social frame to deny individual suffering or to skip treatment (see 4.2). Working when the client or family can name both the harm done to them and the relationships that could help repair it. [synthesis]

4.3 Conscientization dialogue (conscientización)

Purpose / when: The core process. It helps clients critically perceive their circumstances, analyse the causes of oppression and find new paths of action. Use it when distress is tied to discrimination, exploitation, violence or institutional harm. [source: Comas-Díaz 2017, after Freire 1970; Burton 2013, p. 253] Martín-Baró's assumptions, as summarised by Costa & Mendes: people change as they transform their reality; decoding and denaturalising the world opens new options for action; and a new view of the world brings a new view of oneself. [source: Costa & Mendes 2020, summarising Martín-Baró 1996]
Steps (structure from Comas-Díaz's vignette; wording is synthesis):
1. Start from a concrete recent incident the client brings, together with the feeling it left (e.g. fury, shame).
2. Describe it: what exactly happened?
3. Ask the Freirean critical questions Comas-Díaz cites from Freire & Macedo (2000): why, how, for whom, against whom, by whom, in favour of whom or what, and to what end. Ask them one or two at a time, not as a checklist.
4. Identify who is harmed and who benefits from the situation as it is.
5. Separate what is personal (the client's part) from what is structural.
6. Generate options for action, from small personal steps (in her vignette, speaking to the pharmacist or calling the manager) to collective ones.
7. Choose a step and review it the next session: what happened, what was learned.
Example language (illustrative): "Let's slow that moment down: what happened, step by step?" / "Who gained from things going that way, and who paid?" / "Which part of this is yours to carry, and which part was put on you?" / "What's one thing you could do about it that feels possible this week?"
Watch for / working when: The client moves from raw personal fury or self-blame to structural analysis and then to a chosen action, as in Comas-Díaz's vignette (from fury to analysis to action). Two risks: the therapist lecturing (analysis imposed instead of discovered), and analysis without action, which can leave a client more hopeless. [source: Comas-Díaz 2017; risk notes are synthesis]

4.4 De-ideologizing everyday experience and common sense

Purpose / when: To expose and loosen dominant explanations that individualise, naturalise or justify the client's situation. Examples are machismo, "people like us never get anywhere", and a group being lazy or deserving its poverty. This is the second of Martín-Baró's three urgent tasks: rescuing the original experience of groups and persons, as far as possible through a process of critical participation. [source: Pamplona & Mendes 2020, pp. 672–674, quoting Martín-Baró 2011, pp. 195–196; González 1999, p. 997; Burton 2013, p. 253; De la Corte, p. 1101 (machismo and fatalism as ideological examples)]
Steps [synthesis]:
1. Listen for taken-for-granted explanations of the client's suffering, in their own words or quoted from others (family, media, institutions, previous clinicians).
2. Reflect one back as a belief, not a fact: "So the story is that…"
3. Ask where it came from, who repeats it, and who benefits if it is believed.
4. Test it against the client's own experience and evidence. In his research Martín-Baró set real data (opinion surveys) against propaganda. [source: Burton 2013, p. 253; Dobles]
5. Help the client write an alternative account that fits their experience better.
6. Notice when an earlier clinical label works ideologically, for example a diagnosis that pathologises someone for refusing an unjust order. Di Nella links Martín-Baró's critique of resignation to this kind of pathologising. [source: Di Nella 2007]
Example language (illustrative): "You said 'immigrants just have to put up with it.' Whose voice is that? Does your own experience back it up?" / "If everyone believed that, who would it be convenient for?"
Watch for: Be careful not to replace one dogma with another. Martín-Baró's commitment was critical, not partisan. [source: De la Corte, p. 1095] De-ideologizing also applies to the therapist's own assumptions (see 4.12).

4.5 Working with fatalism

Purpose / when: With clients who show resignation, passivity, a belief that life is predestined or fixed by outside forces or God, and a focus only on the present. Martín-Baró described fatalism as conformism and resignation in the face of any circumstance. It works ideologically, making inequality look natural. [source: Costa & Mendes 2020, citing Martín-Baró 2017a, p. 175; Burton 2013, p. 253]
Ways out of fatalism, as summarised from Martín-Baró: recover historical memory and overcome presentism; popular organisation; change in social structures. [source: Costa & Mendes 2020] Pamplona & Mendes give the same first two and name the third "class practice" (prática de classe), citing his essay on the "lazy Latino" (2017c, p. 198). [source: Pamplona & Mendes 2020, p. 673] Martín-Baró held that structural change is ultimately needed, so individual therapy alone is not expected to dissolve fatalism.
Steps [synthesis]:
1. Treat fatalistic statements as understandable products of real powerlessness, not as character flaws. Do not argue with them head-on.
2. Look for exceptions: times when the client or their people did change something.
3. Link the present to history (4.6) to undo the sense that "it was always this way and always will be".
4. Introduce small, controllable actions and collective ones, and review them to build experiences of agency.
5. Connect the client with groups or organisations in which others act together.
6. Respect religious frameworks. Explore meanings within the client's faith that support agency (e.g. liberation-theology traditions) without attacking belief.
Example language (illustrative): "It sounds like a lot of life has taught you that nothing you do changes anything. Has there ever been a time, yours or your family's, when something did change because people acted?"
Watch for: Costa & Mendes argue that resignation and revolt coexist and warn against "psychologising" fatalism as a syndrome. Look for the hidden resistance inside apparent passivity. [source: Costa & Mendes 2020]

4.6 Recovering historical memory

Purpose / when: For clients cut off from personal, family or collective history: people living in an "ungrounded present", survivors of erased or denied violence, and migrants. This is the first urgent task of the 1986 essay. Martín-Baró's rationale: without historical memory one cannot learn from experience or find the roots of one's own identity, and so cannot imagine alternatives. [source: Pamplona & Mendes 2020, p. 670, quoting Martín-Baró 2011, p. 195] Burton presents memory as a way to understand identity and imagine alternatives, with El Salvador's 1932 repression as his example. [source: Burton 2013, pp. 253–254; Heitz 2022; Costa & Mendes 2020]
Steps [synthesis]:
1. Build a timeline that runs personal life events alongside family and community history: migration, wars, repression, struggles and achievements.
2. Invite family stories, including those of resistance and survival as well as loss.
3. Where history has been officially denied or silenced, name the silencing itself ("name the silence": Dobles, extended clinically).
4. Link historical events to current symptoms, beliefs or family patterns.
5. Help the client identify what they want to carry forward: values, practices, identity.
6. Where useful, connect with collective memory: community archives, memorials, commemorations, truth processes, cultural organisations. [source: Burton 2013, p. 255, describes testimonies, artistic work and exhumation as field practices]
Example language (illustrative): "What happened to your grandparents' generation in that region? What did your family not talk about?" / "What did the people before you do to survive? What of that is in you?"
Watch for: Re-traumatisation. Go at the client's pace, use grounding, and do not push disclosure of atrocities. Working when the client's story becomes more coherent and they recognise themselves as part of a lineage, not an isolated failure.

4.7 Strengthening the people's virtues (potenciación de las virtudes populares)

Purpose / when: Throughout, to counter deficit-focused views of oppressed groups. This is the third urgent task of the 1986 essay. The virtues Martín-Baró names include solidarity in suffering, the capacity to give oneself and make sacrifices for the collective good, faith in the human capacity to transform the world, and hope. [source: Pamplona & Mendes 2020, p. 676, quoting Martín-Baró 2011, p. 196] Pamplona & Mendes read his praise of these virtues as aimed against individualism (p. 677). Dobles's summary also mentions survival and austerity. [source: Dobles] Martín-Baró lamented that psychologists had not found their peoples' "rich potential of virtues" and noted that conventional psychology finds solidarity hard to understand. [source: Di Nella 2007, pp. 50, 53] Comas-Díaz uses artivism and indigenous healing to help clients connect with cultural strengths. [source: Comas-Díaz 2017]
Steps [synthesis]:
1. Ask directly about how the client and their people have survived, cared for one another and made do.
2. Name these as virtues, not mere coping.
3. Find where they are present now (networks, mutual aid, faith communities, cultural practices).
4. Plan how to use them for the current problem.
5. Where relevant, link the client to collective settings that practise them.
Example language (illustrative): "When things were hardest, who showed up for whom? What does that say about the people you come from?"
Watch for: Romanticising suffering ("you're so resilient") in a way that excuses unjust conditions. Virtues are resources for change, not reasons to put up with the conditions.

4.8 Testimonio

Purpose / when: The person tells their psychosocial experience as both protagonist and witness, turning private suffering into a testimony that has social meaning. Useful for survivors of political violence, torture, persecution, migration trauma and discrimination. [source: Comas-Díaz 2017, citing Aron 1992; Burton 2013, p. 255]
Steps [synthesis]:
1. Explain the purpose: a record of what happened to you and to your people, told in your own voice, not a clinical history.
2. Agree on scope, pace, who the testimony is for (private, family, community, legal, public) and the client's right to stop.
3. Record the account over one or more sessions (written, audio or transcribed by the therapist), with the client as narrator and witness: what happened, to whom, who was responsible, what it did to you and your community.
4. Read it back together; the client edits it.
5. Discuss what the testimony shows about the wider situation.
6. Decide together what to do with it: keep it, give it to family, use it in advocacy or legal processes (with informed consent and safety planning), or mark it with a ritual.
Example language (illustrative): "You are the one who was there. I'd like to help you set down what you witnessed, in your own words, for whoever you choose."
Watch for: Flooding and re-traumatisation. Use grounding and stabilise first if needed. If testimony may reach courts or the media, consider legal and safety risks and the client's immigration status. Working when the client describes a shift from shame to dignity, or from isolation to being a witness. [synthesis]

4.9 Artivism and creative expression

Purpose / when: Comas-Díaz describes "artivism" (art with a social-justice purpose, citing Sandoval & Latorre 2008) as helping clients connect with cultural strengths, recover historical memories and reshape identities. Burton lists artistic activity among the practices of the field. [source: Comas-Díaz 2017; Burton 2013, p. 255]
Steps [synthesis]:
1. Ask about art forms meaningful in the client's culture: music, poetry, murals, textiles, theatre, photography, digital media.
2. Invite a piece that responds to a theme from therapy (e.g. "what was taken", "what we kept").
3. Explore the piece in session: the images, history and strengths it shows.
4. Consider, without pressure, whether to share it in a group, community or public setting.
Example language (illustrative): "If you made something, a song, a drawing, anything, about what your family carried across the border, what would it look like?"
Watch for: Art is not homework to be graded. Working when the client makes and owns the piece and links it to identity and action. Burton lists Theatre of the Oppressed among the field's influences [source: Burton 2013, p. 251, Chart 1]; its techniques are outlined in 4.9b.

4.9b Theatre of the Oppressed techniques (Boal; adjacent tradition)

Origin and status: Developed by the Brazilian theatre practitioner Augusto Boal from the 1970s, influenced by Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed. It is a neighbouring Freirean tradition that Burton lists as an influence on liberation psychology; the Martín-Baró texts used here do not describe him using it. The descriptions below come from an encyclopaedia summary that cites Boal's books; Boal's own texts are not drawn on here. [source: Wikipedia, "Theatre of the Oppressed", citing Boal 1993 and 1996; Burton 2013, p. 251] [uncertain: details not checked against Boal's texts]
Core idea: Audience members become "spect-actors" who explore and change the situation shown instead of only watching it.
Image Theatre: one participant (the sculptor) shapes the others into a group statue of a situation by touch alone, without words or demonstrating. Clinical adaptation [synthesis]: in a group, sculpt "the situation as it is", then "as we want it", then the steps between. Because shaping uses touch, get explicit consent first, or let people take the pose by watching the sculptor instead.
Forum Theatre: a short scene shows an oppressed protagonist. Spect-actors stop the scene, replace the protagonist and act out an attempt to break the oppression. The aim is to explore several possible paths, not to show one correct answer. A facilitator, the Joker, runs the session and invites interventions.
Newspaper Theatre: a set of techniques (e.g. simple reading, crossed reading, rhythmical reading, parallel action, improvisation) for turning news items into scenes. Using it as a group de-ideologizing exercise (4.4) is [synthesis].
Legislative Theatre: a Forum Theatre variant Boal developed as a Rio de Janeiro city councillor, centred on proposed laws, with citizens taking the stage to give their views.
Rainbow of Desire: Boal's therapeutic branch, derived from Image Theatre, which works with internalised oppression; Boal later described these techniques as "theatre and therapy". Train with an experienced Theatre of the Oppressed practitioner before using it clinically [synthesis].
Example language (illustrative): "Let's freeze the scene where the manager turns you down. Who wants to step in and try something different?"
Watch for [synthesis]: Re-enacting a client's own trauma scene can flood them, so use composite or fictional scenes and stop if distress rises. Never press anyone to perform. Protect confidentiality when scenes draw on real events. Interventions that "solve" oppression through individual heroics can imply blame for those who could not; debrief with a joint analysis of what was structural.

4.10 Accompaniment

Purpose / when: The basic stance and an intervention in its own right. The clinician walks alongside the client or community through their analysis and struggle rather than directing it. Burton describes the accompaniment of displaced people and families of the disappeared as field practice, and Comas-Díaz describes clients being accompanied, not directed. [source: Comas-Díaz 2017; Burton 2013, p. 255]
Steps [synthesis]:
1. Ask what the client wants support with, including practical matters (legal appointments, hearings, searches, community meetings), and agree your role and limits.
2. Where your role allows, be present at key moments, or prepare for and debrief them.
3. Let the client lead decisions. Offer questions and information, not directives.
4. Stay through the long periods with no resolution (e.g. searching for a disappeared relative).
Example language (illustrative): "I can't fix this for you, and I won't decide it for you. I can be alongside you as you go through it."
Watch for: Boundaries and dual relationships. Agree with your service in advance what practical presence is allowed. Watch for burnout and vicarious trauma. [synthesis]

4.11 Power-explicit collaborative relationship

Purpose / when: From the first session. The relationship should acknowledge "power inequality in relationships, as well as in society". [source: Comas-Díaz 2017]
Steps [synthesis]:
1. Name the relevant differences between therapist and client (e.g. class, race, gender, legal status, professional authority) and invite the client to say how they affect the work.
2. Explain how the service works, what records are kept and who can see them.
3. Make goals and formulation together.
4. Review regularly whether the client feels heard and in charge of the direction.
Example language (illustrative): "I'm a professional in an institution, and you may have had bad experiences with institutions. If anything here feels like that, I want to hear it."
Watch for: Token naming that changes nothing. Working when the client disagrees with you openly.

4.12 Self-examination and historicising one's practice

Purpose / when: Continuous, for the clinician. Martín-Baró asked mental-health professionals to examine their theoretical presuppositions ("examinar nuestros presupuestos teóricos") for historical effectiveness, not just internal coherence. He asked them to look at reality without the ideological crutches of routine work. [source: Martín-Baró 1984, p. 511] Psychology should "historicise" its own practice, and ask whether it serves the people or their control. [source: Dobles; Heitz 2022]
Steps [synthesis]:
1. For each case, ask whether your chosen technique adapts the client to an unjust situation or widens their options.
2. Check which of your assumptions (individualism, a focus on adjustment, ahistorical diagnosis) could mislead in this case. Di Nella lists positivism, individualism, hedonism, a homeostatic view and ahistoricism as presuppositions Martín-Baró criticised. [source: Di Nella 2007]
3. Use supervision or peer groups to review cases through this lens.
4. Review service-level questions: who gets access, who is excluded, whose voices shape the service.
Watch for / working when: Formulations become more contextual and treatment plans include social and relational targets as well as symptom targets.

4.13 Rebuilding humanising social relations

Purpose / when: In settings shaped by violence, polarisation and lies, Martín-Baró directs professional methods towards breaking with a culture of damaged social relations ("romper con esa cultura de nuestras relaciones sociales viciadas") and replacing it with humanising ones. [source: Martín-Baró 1984, approx. p. 512]
Steps [synthesis]:
1. In individual, family or group work, find the relational patterns the conflict has bred: violence as the default answer, us-versus-them judgements, secrecy and lying.
2. Practise alternatives inside the therapy relationship and in session (honest speech, non-violent conflict resolution, recognising the other).
3. With families, deal with children learning violence. Martín-Baró warned about children of war learning violence, irrationality and lies. [source: Martín-Baró 1984, approx. p. 513]
4. In groups or communities, create spaces where people from different positions can speak and be heard.
Example language (illustrative): "In this group we don't decide who someone is by which side they're on. We listen to what they've lived."
Watch for: Safety first. Do not bring together polarised parties when there is real danger.

4.14 Mental-health education aimed at real needs

Purpose / when: Martín-Baró called for an "urgent" task of education for mental health. In his account this means helping people bring their desires in line with real human needs, not only teaching relaxation techniques. [source: Martín-Baró 1984, approx. p. 512]
Steps [synthesis]:
1. In psychoeducation, explain stress and trauma reactions in their social context (see 4.2).
2. Explore with clients or groups which wants are imposed from outside (e.g. by consumerism or status) and which needs are real (safety, belonging, dignity, meaningful work).
3. Teach self-regulation skills as tools, not as the whole answer.
Watch for: Moralising about clients' desires. Keep the work exploratory.

4.15 Collectivising suffering: from private to shared

Purpose / when: Burton describes ILAS's work with torture survivors in Chile as moving suffering from a private to a shared social experience. [source: Burton 2013, p. 256] Use it with clients isolated by shame or secrecy about political or structural violence.
Steps [synthesis]:
1. Assess readiness and safety for group work.
2. Form groups of people with shared experiences (survivors, relatives of the disappeared, migrant workers), with agreed confidentiality.
3. Use structured sharing, then joint analysis of what members have in common and what caused it.
4. Move towards joint meaning-making and, where members want it, collective action (4.16).
Example language (illustrative): "What each of you went through happened to you alone, but it wasn't only about you. Let's look at what it shares."
Watch for: Contagion of distress, security risks (surveillance or informants in political contexts), and dominance by a few voices.

4.16 Linking to collective action, organisations and movements

Purpose / when: Liberation involves agency and engagement in personal and collective social-justice action. [source: Comas-Díaz 2017] In Ceará, Brazil, community psychologists work under the leadership of social movements, with community therapy built into social groups and collective action. [source: Burton 2013, pp. 252–253] Martín-Baró saw popular organisation as a way out of fatalism. [source: Costa & Mendes 2020]
Steps [synthesis]:
1. Ask about the client's existing ties to unions, tenant groups, faith communities, migrant associations or advocacy groups.
2. If the client wishes, share information about relevant organisations. Do not prescribe political positions.
3. Plan and rehearse participation; review afterwards.
4. As a service, build partnerships with community organisations and, where appropriate, take a supporting rather than leading role.
Example language (illustrative): "Others in your building are dealing with the same landlord. Would it help to know whether there's a tenants' group?"
Watch for: Pushing your politics onto the client is a breach of autonomy. The choice of action stays the client's. Consider the risks of action, such as retaliation or immigration consequences.

4.17 Participatory and opinion research as a de-ideologizing tool

Purpose / when: For clinicians in community or service roles. Martín-Baró founded the university public-opinion institute (IUDOP) and used surveys to counter government propaganda about what people thought. He also did surveys for the 1988 National Debate convened by the Catholic Church. [source: Burton 2013, p. 253; Dobles; Viera syllabus calls the institute a "coping technique"]
Steps [synthesis]:
1. Identify a community claim or myth that silences people (e.g. "no one here wants change").
2. With the community, design a simple, ethically approved survey or consultation.
3. Feed the results back publicly so people can see what they actually think.
4. Use them in advocacy and to shape services.
Watch for: Research ethics, protection of respondents and political risk.

4.18 Memory, justice and community rituals (support role)

Purpose / when: Exhumations and reburials, work with families of the disappeared and campaigns against impunity are field practices, especially in Guatemala. [source: Burton 2013, p. 255] For a clinician, the role is psychosocial support to families and communities within processes led by those communities, human-rights organisations and forensic teams. [synthesis]
Steps [synthesis]: prepare families for exhumation or identification; be present or available before and after; support grief rituals as the family and community define them; debrief.
Watch for: Prolonged or complicated grief, retraumatisation, and community conflict. Leave forensic and legal matters to the specialists.

4.19 Integrating indigenous and community healing (partner role)

Purpose / when: Comas-Díaz promotes holistic wellbeing by bringing indigenous psychological healing into treatment. [source: Comas-Díaz 2017, citing Comas-Díaz 2012] Under the house rule, the non-Indigenous clinician's role is to support, refer and partner. Cultural authority rests with the community's own healers and elders. [synthesis]
Steps [synthesis]: ask about the healing traditions the client uses or values; with consent, coordinate with healers; make space in the treatment plan; do not perform or imitate ceremonies yourself.
Watch for: Appropriation, and conflicts with medical care, which you handle respectfully and collaboratively.

5. Handling problems

The sources used here barely deal with clinical difficulties. Everything below is [synthesis] unless a source is named.

Client rejects structural framing ("it's my fault", "don't make it political"). Do not push. Go back to the client's own words and goals, and explore context through their concrete experiences instead of concepts. Keep personal responsibility in the formulation, because liberation work does not deny agency. Offer the context as one possible reading: "Some people find it helps to look at what was happening around them too. Does that fit for you?" A therapist who lectures is doing the opposite of dialogue-based conscientization. [Burton 2013, p. 253: liberation is a process of dialogue]
Analysis without hope: more awareness, more despair. If insight into oppression is increasing hopelessness, slow down. Shift to strengths (4.7), memory of past resistance (4.6) and small achievable actions (4.3, step 6). Re-assess depression and suicide risk using standard structured risk assessment and safety planning. If the risk is raised, follow your service's protocols, including lethal-means counselling (safe storage and removal) and crisis pathways.
Fatalism and stuck passivity. See 4.5. Expect slow change. Martín-Baró linked lasting change in fatalism to organisation and structural change [Costa & Mendes 2020], so measure progress in small gains in agency and social connection, not personality change. Look for the resistance hidden in apparent resignation [Costa & Mendes 2020].
Overwhelm during testimony or memory work. Pause, ground, and return to present safety. Divide the narrative into parts and agree a pace. Bring in trauma-focused, evidence-based treatment where PTSD criteria are met; liberation work does not replace it. Martín-Baró's "normal reaction to abnormal circumstances" [1984, p. 512] does not mean that severe symptoms go untreated.
Ongoing danger. When the oppressive conditions are still happening (domestic violence, persecution, unsafe immigration status, workplace exploitation), safety planning and practical, legal and advocacy referrals come before reflective work. Keep up mandatory reporting duties (child protection, adult safeguarding) while staying transparent with the client.
Non-adherence to agreed actions. Treat it as information. Was the action the client's choice or the therapist's? Was it too risky or too costly? Did someone with power block it? Re-plan with smaller or safer steps. Never interpret a structural barrier as "resistance".
Ruptures over power and identity. Clients may experience the therapist as one more institutional authority or as a member of an oppressor group. Name it, invite it, and acknowledge real differences and institutional failures without defending them. Repair through visible changes, such as shared decisions and practical help. [Comas-Díaz 2017 on acknowledging power inequality; repair steps synthesis]
Therapist imposing ideology. Clients have the right to their own political, religious and cultural positions. Martín-Baró's commitment was critical and not partisan [De la Corte, p. 1095], and he wanted popular programmes questioned too [Dobles]. Check in supervision whether you are guiding the client towards your own views. Do not prescribe activism.
Polarisation inside groups or families. Set ground rules against judging people by their "side" (cf. Martín-Baró 1984, p. 507, on polarisation). Do not bring together parties when real danger exists. Use separate sessions first.
Institutional constraints. Services may require diagnosis-led, time-limited, individual treatment. Keep the contextual formulation in the record alongside the diagnosis, use the time to strengthen links to the community, and raise the service-level patterns you observe through proper channels [Martín-Baró 1984, p. 511, on examining routine practice].
Security and confidentiality in political contexts. Testimony, group membership and research data can expose clients to danger. Keep records to the minimum, get explicit consent for any wider use, and know your local legal risks.
Cultural mismatch and appropriation. Freirean and Latin American concepts may not translate everywhere. Adapt them using clients' own language and traditions, and partner with cultural leaders. Do not run ceremonies (4.19).
Therapist burnout and vicarious trauma. Accompaniment through long injustice takes a heavy toll. Use supervision, peer support, workload limits and collective spaces for staff.
Expecting therapy to deliver liberation alone. Martín-Baró placed liberation in social and structural change, not only in individual insight [Costa & Mendes 2020; Burton 2013]. Set modest clinical goals and work alongside community organisations.

Sources

Sources

Additional sources:

González, L. A. (1999). Psicología de la liberación y ciencias sociales. ECA 613–614, 995–1008 (quotes the 1986 essay from the Blanco 1998 reprint)
Pamplona, P. & Mendes, C. E. (2020). A memória das Comunidades Eclesiais de Base à luz da Psicologia da Libertação. Estudos e Pesquisas em Psicologia 20(2), 665–681 (quotes the essay in Portuguese translation, 2011)
González, K. & Alejandro, G. Un modelo psicosocial para la reconciliación. ECA 72(750), 297–321
González, R., Rodríguez, S. & Urrutia, X. Representaciones sociales de la violencia directa de jóvenes descendientes y no descendientes de excombatientes de la guerrilla salvadoreña. ECA 74(756), 37–62
Barrera Machado, D. (2022). Realidades dadas en Colombia: un llamado urgente a la psicología de la liberación (CLACSO repository record, abstract only)
Theatre of the Oppressed (Wikipedia; secondary)
Writings for a Liberation Psychology: library catalogue record (East Carolina University) and bookshop.org listing (bibliographic details and publisher description only)

Further reading (not drawn on) [uncertain where relied on]

Martín-Baró, I. (1986). Hacia una psicología de la liberación. Boletín de Psicología (UCA), 5(22), 219–231. Not drawn on in full; the passages used were checked through direct quotations in González (1999) and Pamplona & Mendes (2020).
Martín-Baró, I. (1994). Writings for a Liberation Psychology (A. Aron & S. Corne, eds.; foreword by E. G. Mishler). Harvard University Press; xiv + 242 pp.; paperback 1996. Text not drawn on here; bibliographic details checked.
Martín-Baró, I. (1998). Psicología de la liberación (A. Blanco, ed.). Trotta.
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Freire, P. & Macedo, D. (2000), as cited by Comas-Díaz.
Aron, A. (1992). Testimonio, as cited by Comas-Díaz (2017).
Comas-Díaz, L., Lykes, M. B. & Alarcón, R. (1998). Ethnic conflict and the psychology of liberation in Guatemala, Peru and Puerto Rico. American Psychologist, as cited by Comas-Díaz (2017).
Comas-Díaz, L. & Torres Rivera, E. (eds.) (2020). Liberation Psychology: Theory, Method, Practice, and Social Justice. APA. Not drawn on here.

Further reading (not drawn on): the JMMH article on liberation psychology, the CUNY Pressbooks open text on liberation psychology and the SSOAR full text of Barrera Machado. Also further reading (not drawn on): Martín-Baró, I. (1988), "La violencia política y la guerra como causas del trauma psicosocial en El Salvador" (as cited by González & Alejandro); Cabrera, E. (1990), "Una entrevista con Ignacio Martín-Baró", Revista de Psicología de El Salvador 37 (as cited by González 1999); Boal, A. (1993), Theater of the Oppressed, Theatre Communications Group, and Boal, A. (1996), The Rainbow of Desire, Routledge (as cited by Wikipedia).

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