from Political News

Writing in "'In dreams begin responsibilities': Psychology, agency, and activism," Glassgold suggests that therapists must make psychology "a liberatory experience, to be among those who offer solutions to problems of social justice."

She urges gay psychologists to adopt the philosophy of Liberation Psychology (Martin-Baro, 1994), which is rooted in ideologies from Latin and South American countries.

Psychologists must reject seeing individual personal problems and be willing to see these problems as the consequences of social injustice, says Glassgold. Psychotherapists must revise deterministic theories of social issues and "incorporate contextualist models that better explain concepts such as social power, freedom, agency, and resistance."

Gay psychologists must view the world as an oppressive place, and they must resist efforts of outside forces to label them. The goal should be to "create new meanings" and "social definitions" in order to liberate others from social structures that define what is normal or abnormal.

Glassgold believes that any system that says one sexual identity is normal and others are not, is oppressive and must be resisted. "Systems that attempt to define what is 'normal' are systems of statis that attempt to limit human potential. ... our theories must be embraced tentatively, as metaphors, not reified as truth or normalcy."

"We must focus on making psychology and psychotherapy more than just a Band-aid for broader social problems, but as an intrinsic part of social and personal liberation."

Updated: 8 February 2008

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