Identity and memory as resilience: Applications of liberation psychology in a rural Maya Achi community

This study sought to understand interpretations of interconnections between historical trauma, contemporary violence, and resilience in a Maya Achi community currently engaged in promoting peace and social change through popular education. In particular, the ways in which participants drew upon identity and memory in articulating characteristics of community distress and resilience are discussed. The research is informed by liberation psychology and critical perspectives of mental health, particularly considering the challenges inherent in the promotion of collective memory of trauma and resistance in contexts of violence and humanitarian settings. Participant reflections on historical and contemporary violence highlight elements of collective distress, connecting identity and memory with acts of both oppression and resistance. Education and development are signaled as possible sites of resilience but also experienced as sites of power upholding the status quo. Diverse experiences and applications of identity and memory provide insight into the ways in which community organizations working in contexts of political violence might navigate polarizing and paradoxical discourses in order to subvert, co-opt, or adapt to hegemonic cultural, political, and economic power relations in the process of transformation for collective resilience.

Critical psychologies and climate change

This article is a review of recent contributions in critical psychology, and its close cousins, critical social psychology, critical community psychology and liberation psychology, to understandings of the human response to climate change. It contrasts critical psychology with mainstream psychology in general terms, before introducing a critical psychological perspective on climate change. Central to this perspective is a critique of the framing of individual behaviour change as the problem and solution to climate change in mainstream psychology, and a related emphasis on identifying ‘barriers’ to pro-environmental behaviour. This framework is argued to be reductive, obscuring or downplaying the influence of a range of factors in shaping predominant responses to climate change to date, including social context, discourse, power and affect. Currently, critical psychologies set out to study the relative contribution of these factors to (in)action on climate change. A related concern is how the psychological and emotional impacts of climate change impact unevenly on communities and individuals, depending on place-based, economic, geographic and cultural differences, and giving rises to experiences of injustice, inequality and disempowerment. Critical psychology does not assume these to be overriding or inevitable psychological and social responses, however. Critical psychologies also undertake research and inform interventions that highlight the role of collective understanding, activism, empowerment and resistance as the necessary foundations of a genuine shift towards sustainable societies.

Directive vs. Non-directive Clinical Approaches: Liberation Psychology and Muslim Mental Health

Liberation psychology (LP) is a psychological framework that emphasizes social justice as a key component of mental health, defined in LP as the ability of human beings to co-exist, live in harmony, and thrive in community. Muslim mental health as a clinical focus continues to develop, and most writing emphasizes the importance of cultural sensitivity in providing effective care for Muslims, which the literature often relates to the collectivistic nature of Muslim majority societies. The literature, in turn, often uses collectivistic tendencies and research to support 1-on-1 directive approaches. This paper questions the use of such directive approaches as potentially re-creating a model of hierarchy and dominance that is connected to Muslims’ mental health challenges, particularly those of Muslim sub-populations. The authors suggest and discuss several LP-based alternatives, especially the use of group therapy as a more appropriate and culturally responsive model, from both di-rective and non-directive clinical orientations.