Liberation Psychology in Practice (examples)

26 Sep, 2025

In this post you will find several practical and very detailed examples (with steps, concrete exercises, how to evaluate, what questions to ask in session, ethical risks, and how to connect it with community work/advocacy).

Before the examples, here’s a brief reminder of background and key ideas (so you can check sources if you want):

Summary of Liberation Psychology

Ignacio Martín-Baró is the central figure of liberation psychology and proposed that psychology must be situated in the socio-political context and committed to the liberation of the oppressed.

Liberation psychology strongly takes up Paulo Freire’s idea of conscientization and uses participatory, community-based, and artistic methods to produce critical awareness and collective action.

Recent collections and practical applications are found in books such as Psychology of Liberation (Montero & Sonn) and Toward Psychologies of Liberation (Watkins & Shulman).

Finally: participatory tools such as the Theatre of the Oppressed are often used as a practical technique in liberatory interventions.

Example 1 — Individual therapy with survivor of political violence / state repression

Context: Client who lived through or witnessed torture/repression/restriction of freedoms; presents with insomnia, flashbacks, guilt, and the sense of “being the one who’s wrong” after official narratives that minimize violence.

Clinical goals (3–6 months):

Validate historical and emotional experience; reconstruct memory and coherent narrative.
De-ideologize internalized guilt (show structural causes).
Reduce intrusive symptoms and improve somatic regulation.
Connect individual recovery with community processes (if the client wishes).

Initial assessment (1–2 sessions):

Extended psychosocial history: map of events (timeline), family roles, socio-economic consequences.
Standardized symptom evaluation (e.g., trauma symptom scales) + social ecomap (who supports/oppresses).
Key questions: “What part of this have you been told shouldn’t be said?”, “How were you taught to understand what happened to you?”, “What do you think happened in society at that time?”

Interventions (sample sessions, concrete techniques):

Contextualized psychoeducation: 1 session explaining how political violence generates normal responses in normal bodies; link individual experience to structural causes (avoid psychologizing guilt).
- Material: short handout “Why it’s not your fault — social vs. personal causes” (printable).
Narrative work + public/private timeline: build a “timeline” with personal and political events; ask them to highlight absences (what the official narrative omits).
- Exercise: “Letter to memory” (writing a letter to the part of self that was silenced).
De-ideologization: use Socratic questioning to identify discourses that blame them (“in what way were you told this was your ‘fault’?”), then reframe with historical/social evidence.
Somatic techniques (brief and anchored): 5–10 minutes per session of safe grounding, then titration practices before and after recounting traumatic memories.
Optional community connection: if the client wants, support linking to memory groups or reparation projects (can be therapeutic and political).
Safety plan: identify legal/retaliation risks if they participate publicly; discuss confidentiality and limits.

Therapist’s role: critical, non-neutral stance: validating, de-ideologizing listening, willingness to name injustice; avoid “rescuing.” How to phrase it in session? “What happened to you is not a personal failure: it’s the consequence of political decisions and practices of power. Your response is human.”

Progress evaluation: reduction in trauma scale, greater narrative coherence, less self-blaming in follow-up interviews, participation in support networks (if relevant).

Risks/ethics: watch for retraumatization when “opening” memory without regulation resources; informed consent about implications of making their story “public.”

(Sources on political trauma work and the need to contextualize suffering: Martín-Baró; contemporary compilations).

Example 2 — Group therapy + Forum Theatre for women survivors of gender violence in impoverished neighborhood

Context: Local women’s group experiencing domestic violence and social stigmatization; formal services have not addressed structural causes (poverty, institutionalized machismo).

Goals (6–12 sessions):

Generate critical awareness about structural causes (machismo, poverty).
Strengthen support networks and practical resources (legal resources, safety).
Practice actions (simulations) for negotiating, reporting, or organizing.

Program structure (8–12 sessions):

Session 0 — Welcome, safety rules, confidentiality, neighborhood resource mapping.
Sessions 1–3 — Consciousness-raising workshops (Freirean): “What is violence?”, case analysis, mapping power structures in the neighborhood.
Sessions 4–6 — Introduction to Forum Theatre (playful + forum exercises) to rehearse responses in real-life situations (Augusto Boal). Participants propose scenes from their lives, group rehearses alternatives.
Sessions 7–9 — Development of a small collective “action plan”: local campaigns, legal support, peer accompaniment groups.
Final session — Participatory evaluation and community feedback (may include public presentation if participants choose).

Concrete techniques:

Force map: identify who sustains violence and who can support.
Role play + Forum Theatre: create scenes and allow audience (the group) to suggest and intervene.
Resource box: create a shared “kit” (phone numbers, addresses, legal steps).

Evaluation: qualitative indicators (sense of empowerment, reports of concrete actions) and quantitative (reduction in isolated incidents, increase in resource use).

Ethical considerations: protect identity if public sharing occurs. Coordinate with protection services and legal advisors. Document consent for any public presentation.

(Compatibility of Theatre of the Oppressed with community psychology and its use in empowerment projects).

Example 3 — Care for migrant/refugee population: clinic + community accompaniment

Context: Migrants experiencing racism, job precarity, and pre-/post-migration trauma.

Goals: listen and integrate migration history within a framework highlighting structural causes (neoliberalism, wars, inequality), facilitate access to resources, and promote containment networks.

Suggested intervention:

Cultural/contextual assessment: ecomap, life line (pre, transit, post), identify symbolic losses (status, language, community).
Socio-political psychoeducation: short group talks on rights, understanding anxiety in migration context.
Workshops on meaning and narratives: writing “migration story” in small collective narratives to regain agency.
Network work: coordinate with NGOs, social services, cultural mediators.

Concrete techniques: “Story circles” (share-and-listen), “rights map” (handout with legal steps), community art interventions to make conditions visible and demand change (photography, mural).

(Evidence that liberation psychology helps explain and intervene in migration/exclusion issues).

Example 4 — School intervention with adolescents in marginalized zone: violence prevention and critical awareness

Context: High school with elevated student violence and lack of dialogue spaces.

Goals: develop critical thinking, reduce victimization, create participatory school protocols.

Program (10 sessions):

Module 1 (3 sessions): “Stories of power”: analyze situations in neighborhood/school; de-ideologization dynamics (what are we made to believe about ‘blame’ and ‘normality’?).
Module 2 (4 sessions): Skills workshops (negotiation, empathy, nonviolent resolution).
Module 3 (3 sessions): Community project: students design a campaign (short video, mural, event) to expose structural causes and propose changes.

Techniques: participatory dynamics, peer work, creation of student-designed “code of coexistence” (instead of top-down rules).

Example 5 — Work with collective memory processes / truth commissions (community + psychosocial therapy)

Context: psychological support to victims during truth and reparation processes.

Intervention: create safe spaces where victims reconstruct memory with psychosocial accompaniment; workshops on memory, commemorative rituals, support for public testimony, coordination with public health and reparation policies.

Techniques: narrative documentation, memory circles, symbolic rituals, mapping damages and solidarity networks.

(More on historical memory and liberation psychology in Martín-Baró’s works and contemporary literature).

Practical tools you can already use in session

Personal/political timeline (template): ask clients to draw personal events alongside socio-political events.
Force map (who pushes/helps): useful for planning actions.
Somatic safety box: short regulation exercises before/after telling memories.
Initial interview guide with socio-political context questions (there are templates available).

Trauma and Neurodivergent Coach