Liberation psychology is quite different than the prevailing psychology that most U.S. mental health professionals practice—which is to modify, manipulate, and medicate “malcontents” so that they are not monkey wrenches for the industrial order. In addition to Martin-Baró’s insights, the U.S. needs its own version of liberation psychology in which we start by recognizing that the U.S. population has been broken, then understand how this has happened, and then find paths to regain morale, healing, wholeness, and strength.
Ignacio Martin-Baró believed that much of the standard, prevailing psychology served the interests of the ruling class and promoted alienation of oppressed people. “Generally,” he said, “psychologists have tried to enter into the social process by way of the powers to be.” In his essay “Toward a Liberation Psychology” (Writings for a Liberation Psychology, 1994, eds. Adrianne Aron and Shawn Corne), Martin-Baró points out that, “What has happened to Latin American psychology is similar to North American psychology at the beginning of the twentieth century, when it ran so fast after scientific recognition and social status that it stumbled…. In order to get social position and rank, it negotiated how it would contribute to the needs of the established power structure.”
The prevailing psychology, according to Martin-Baró, is not politically neutral, but favors maintaining the status quo. Reducing human motivations to the maximization of pleasure fits neatly into the dominant culture. Martin-Baró astutely observed that most prevailing psychology schools of thought—be it psychoanalytic, behavioral, or biochemical—accept the maximization of pleasure as the motivating force for human behavior, ignoring other human motivations, including the need for fairness and social justice.
Prevailing psychology’s focus on individualism, he wrote, “ends up reinforcing the existing structures, because it ignores the reality of social structures and reduces all structural problems to personal problems.” Martin-Baró also pointed out, echoing Lewis Mumford, that when knowledge is limited to verifiable, observable facts and events, we “become blind to the most important meanings of human existence.” Much of what makes us fully human and capable of overcoming injustices—including our courage and solidarity—cannot be reduced to simplistic, verifiable, objective variables.
People who are not mental health professionals often know more about remobilizing the demoralized than mental health professionals. Rather than any psychology textbook, the craft of remobilizing can best be learned through the lives of people who are accomplished at it. In Lincoln’s Melancholy (2005), Joshua Wolf Shenk described how Lincoln, like many sensitive critical thinkers, had a tendency to become deeply depressed, including two periods where Lincoln’s friends felt compelled to have “suicide watches” over him. Lincoln developed several antidotes, one of the most important being humor. Shenk concluded, “Humor gave Lincoln protection from his mental storms. It distracted him and gave him relief and pleasure…. Humor also gave Lincoln a way to connect with people.” Lincoln also combated his despair by finding meaning for his life.
Healing conditions such as compassion, acceptance, kindness, gentleness, and love are certainly not objective or quantifiable and not scientifically measurable; and many mental health academics are more comfortable with observable and measurable techniques, and thus may completely ignore the craft of healing. Immobilized people are often so controlled by painful demons that they act compulsively and destructively to flee their pain and one such demon is shame. People can let go of shame when healing conditions are present, but mental health professionals are not routinely selected to provide these conditions.
There’s a link to the source material here. Thanks for the attention. I’m interested in your comments 
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