Truth, freedom, love, hope, and power: An existential rights paradigm for anti-oppressive psychological praxis.

Abstract

This article contributes to the growing interdisciplinary literature on a rights-based approach to mental health by introducing an "existential rights paradigm" that provides a set of values to guide anti-oppressive praxis as psychologists. This paradigm argues that truth, freedom, love, hope, and power are basic existential rights that are required for the welfare, dignity, and sanity of all human beings, even as oppressive social structures seek to limit access for marginalized individuals. The article explicates the psychological and political significance of each of these five existential rights using theoretical literature from both existential and liberation psychologies, to demonstrate how these two theoretical approaches work in tandem with one another toward similar emancipatory aims. The article also grounds the proposed set of existential rights within human rights discourse from the United Nations. Finally, it suggests ways that psychologists devoted to human rights can adopt this existential rights paradigm as an ethical framework or set of value principles to guide our praxis in psychotherapy, research, and teaching.

Decolonial pedagogy and the undergraduate psychology classroom: Lessons from the intergroup relations course.

“…It is this disconnection between student experience and curriculum that instructors-in all fields-must contend. If we consider classrooms as potential microcosms of society (Gupta, 2022), we need to step back and reflect on what type of society we are creating and how power manifests in education. In the words of Adichie (2009), it is the "disconnection [that] manifests through emphasis on material and content at the expense This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.…”

“…Creating space for conversations that invites diverse perspectives is essential. The content psychology educators provide cannot be separated from students' lived experiences; moreover, these conversations cannot be absent if we are intent on creating classrooms that emphasize mutual respect and understanding of power (Gupta, 2022) through pedagogy. When teaching the historical origins and key studies within the field, educators should consider how their curriculum invites critique.…”

“…DECOLONIAL PEDAGOGY AND THE PSYCHOLOGY CLASSROOM engaged, social justice-minded community members. It is through an antioppressive pedagogy that there is potential to evolve the field of psychology as we work to center marginalized voices and experiences that have been historically ignored (Gupta, 2022).…”

“…As Freire (1968) argues, it is the role of the teacher to attempt to understand the reality of our students’ lives to shape our pedagogy. As a liberatory pedagogy, antioppressive psychological praxis should allow for reflection, connection, and co-creation of knowledge between students and the instructor (Gupta, 2022). According to Gupta (2022), this praxis is interconnected with “basic existential rights [of trust, freedom, love, hope, and power] that are required for the welfare, dignity, and sanity of all human beings, even as oppressive social structures seek to limit access for marginalized individuals” (p. 460).…”

Reflecting back and imagining forward: Qualitative inquiry in psychology at the dawn of a new era.

“…Simultaneously, we envision that future qualitative researchers will continuously turn this critical lens inward, ensuring our own practices of inquiry maintain rigorous reflexivity regarding questions of why we are taking up our research, for whom we are accountable, to whom the research belongs, and how power is exchanged in relationship to coresearchers and participants (Fine, 2018; Gupta, 2022; Watkins & Shulman, 2008). While these self-reflexive questions are essential to doing community-based participatory action research with marginalized communities, they are equally relevant to all projects of qualitative inquiry.…”