The public psychology for liberation training model: A call to transform the discipline.

Abstract

Written against the backdrop of the 2020 twin pandemics of a global health crisis and greater national awareness of structural racism, this article issues a call for psychology to invest in training all psychologists to respond to the social ills of racial and other forms of oppression. We introduce a public psychology for liberation (PPL) training model. Essentially, the model reflects a science, a pedagogical commitment, and practice of, by, and with the people who have been most marginalized in society. The PPL consists of five foundational domains or cross-cutting areas of expertise (e.g., facilitate human relationships; generate reciprocal knowledge and translation) and 10 interrelated lifelong practices (e.g., cultural humility; care and compassion) that foster healing and equity. The model centers the perspectives of the Global Majority, focuses on radical healing and equity, and emphasizes a developmental, culturally grounded, strengths-based approach to training. Various training initiatives consistent with a public psychology for liberation approach are presented.

Participant compensation in health equity research: How equitable is it?

“…We highly recommend health equity researchers evaluate their institutions’ research and financial practices to promote equitable payment options that are inclusive of everyone . This is consistent with using an intersectional lens and liberation framework that prioritizes learning from community, encourages us to preserve the dignity of participants, decolonizing our practices, and reorienting our work to center individuals at the margins who experience the most extreme forms of oppression (Cole, 2009; Neville et al, 2021).…”

Oppression is not “culture”: The need to center systemic and structural determinants to address anti-Black racism and racial trauma in psychotherapy.

“…There is not much new under the sun; often, what psychology (White psychology in particular) thinks it has “discovered” has been long articulated by BIPOC scholars. Recently, BIPOC scholars have seen their incredible work in the areas of structural analysis, racial trauma, and racial healing featured prominently in high-impact, high-visibility psychology spaces such as the American Psychologist (e.g., Anderson & Stevenson, 2019; Anderson et al, 2022; Chavez-Dueñas et al, 2019; Liu et al, 2019; Neville et al, 2021), and this is a wonderful and much needed advancement; however, it must be acknowledged that much more critical knowledge has been generated by BIPOC scholars than what ultimately makes it to the main stage, and that it has taken decades of difficult advocacy and persisting through racist structures to make these visible advancements a reality. We need more such main-staging of BIPOC scholarship, and White psychotherapists and educators need to do the work of searching for, learning from, and integrating the existing work of BIPOC scholars on antiracist work and healing racial trauma in psychotherapy.…”

Sexuality training in counseling psychology: A mixed-methods study of student perspectives.

“…As the United States continues to reckon with social inequalities, some psychologists have called for a public-facing, socially responsive psychology rooted in liberation. Broadly, liberation psychology interrogates and challenges sociopolitical structures that maintain the group-based oppression of people of color, women, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA+) community, immigrants, the poor, people with disabilities, and others (Neville et al, 2021) and is primarily rooted in the work of Ignacio Martín Baró (1986) and other Latin American scholars (Burton & Guzzo, 2020). The WHO (2017) has defined sexuality as central to humanness, encompassing “sex, gender identities and roles, sexual orientation, eroticism, pleasure, intimacy, and reproduction,” expressed in thoughts, behaviors, and relationships, and influenced by the interaction of environmental factors (e.g., social, economic, cultural; para.…”