Liberation Psychology: Sustaining Community Change

Catalog description

This class will take a Liberation Psychology approach to examining the cross section of societal forces and our individual lives as "community change agents" such that we can sustain ourselves and those we might work with professionally and in the community. The course is grounded in understanding of the three pillars of sustainability: environmental, social, and economic, and consideration of how community change will need to address all three. Students will be introduced to a toolkit of practices for sustaining their own wellbeing (e.g., Cognitive Behavioral self-help, mindfulness, attention restoration, activism), and will practice using active listening and interpersonal communication to process effects of oppression and work toward liberation, as well as present about liberation psychology topics and a final model for sustaining community change.