NEXT Book Starts MARCH 21, 2026

Writings for a Liberation Psychology

by Ignacio Martín-Baró

This is a once monthly reading group gathered via Zoom focused on a deeper consideration of collective, systemic, cultural and community models and how we might work to extricate mental health care provision from hyper-individualistic structures

TIME

The third Saturday of each month, at 10:00 Pacific, 11:00 Mountain, 12:00 Central, 1:00 Eastern

Duration

Each session is 1 hour and 15  minutes long, and we will meet monthly as long as there is interest.

New members will be welcome in with each new book.

Dates

Our next book will start on November 15th, 2025. Meetings will continue once a month, every third Saturday.

NORMS

There is no homework and this isn’t class where anyone will be judged or graded! It is a discussion group focused on the themes surfaced by the text. I take extensive notes when I read and distribute them to the group before meetings. Conversations will focus on general themes distilled from the reading, so discussion is inclusive of all, even when participants haven’t had a chance to do the reading.

Content

We will read seminal and contemporary Liberation Psychology and other texts which challenge individual models of psychotherapy such as

• Decolonizing Therapy by Jennifer Mullen, PsyD

• History and Human Survival, by Robert Jay Lifton

• Writings for a Liberation Psychology by Ignacio Martín-Baró

• Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation by Jonathan Lear

• Collective Trauma Collective Healing, by Jack Saul

• Sitting in the Fire by Arnold Mindell

• Revisioning Psychology by James Hillman

• Liberation Psychology: Theory, Method, Practice and Social Justice by Lillian Comas Días and Edil Torres Rivera

• Mutual Accompaniment and the Creation of the Commons by Mary Watkins

• Toward an Integral Psychology of Liberation & Transformation, Raúl Quiñones Rosado

• Love in a Time of Hate: Liberation Psychology in Latin America, By Nancy Caro Hollander

• Embodied Activism: Engaging the Body to Cultivate Liberation, Justice and Authentic Connection--A Practical Guide for Transformative Social Change By Rae Johnson

• and any other texts that group members suggest that reach beyond individualized models of mental health and pathology

Books we have read:

• Toward Psychologies of Liberation, by Mary Watkins and Helene Shulman

• Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity’s Wrongs and the Implication for Social Activism, by Vanessa Machado de Oliveira

• “We’ve Had 100 Years of Psychotherapy and the World is Getting Worse” by James Hillman

Standard Donation and Scholarships

• The suggested donation is $30 per session or whatever is affordable on a pay-what-you-can/donation basis.

• Donations can be made on any schedule or installments as needed.