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The need for culturally affirming mental health interventions for Latine communities has been documented in the literature. Most of this literature centers around best practices, barriers to care, and Latine cultural values. Although much of this literature calls for providing services that acknowledge the specific needs of these communities and value ancestral knowledge, there is a void in the literature when exploring liberatory mental health interventions. Therefore, the present manuscript aims to offer readers a five‐stage counseling model centered on the decolonization process. The model integrates the principles of liberation psychology as interventions and outcomes, beginning with the stages of decolonization presented by Enriquez and further developed by Laenui. Furthermore, the model unpacks the principles of liberation psychology, such as deideologization, and provides bases to challenge the dominant social forces that shape realities. In addition, liberation psychology approaches imply Native counseling approaches, indicating that counselors must be familiar with precolonial cultures. The manuscript ends with recommendations for practitioners and implications for the counseling field, including the need to acknowledge trauma, given that colonization was a violent event. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing from liberation psychology as well as progressive traditions within psychoanalysis, psychoanalytic liberation psychology represents a paradigmatic approach to practice, one that moves away from regressive disciplinary orthodoxies and toward the flows of desire and emotion that characterize emancipatory political spaces. For psychoanalytic liberation psychology, the manner by which fantasy is engaged within anti‐capitalist movements remains, somewhat curiously, under‐considered. In this article, I reflect on my work with a South African social movement to flesh out some of the progressive and regressive valances of fantasy in the context of social movement building. Specifically, I consider how psychoanalytic liberation psychology may and may not be of use to anti‐capitalist resistance movement actors whose political activity is undergirded by a bricolage of fantasies, breakdowns in fantasy, and holding reality accountable to liberatory fantasies. I conclude by speculating what fantasy might mean for future psychoanalytic liberation psychology work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Those working from within the liberation psychology paradigm strive to remould psychology so that it might be put to work for the task of liberation – a task with which most psychologists have, historically, been wholly unconcerned. In practice, liberation psychology tends to be porous, multiple, and under-resourced. Indeed, much of what we might think of as liberation psychology is not referred to as such by its practitioners. Surfacing liberation psychology, then, requires reading into its undocumented histories. In this article, we attempt to develop a picture of liberation psychology in South Africa (SA) by reading the archives of Mohamed Seedat, a pioneering practitioner of liberation psychology. Grounded in the working-class south of Johannesburg and underwritten by expansive global commitments to liberation, Seedat's archive spans almost four decades, passing through many disciplines, communities, political traditions, and affective registers. We suggest that his archive offers us insights into the affective components of history, developing community praxis in apartheid and post-apartheid SA, and humanising knowledge-making. We conclude by reflecting on how liberation psychology archives like Seedat's serve as under-appreciated resources for grappling with the psycho-political constitution of emancipatory struggle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

LGBTQ+ women have long been overlooked in sexual and reproductive health research. However, recent research has established that LGBTQ+ women have unique and specific needs that need to be addressed in order to improve effectiveness of sexual health education and practice with this historically and presently underserved population. Informed by a reproductive justice framework coupled with liberation psychology theory, this review discusses the current state of sexual and reproductive health and technologies among LGBTQ+ women. In particular, we focus on a range of HIV prevention and reproductive technologies and their use and promotion, including the internal condom, abortion, oral contraceptives, dapivirine ring, HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis, intrauterine device, and other less studied options, such as the contraceptive sponge. Grounded in an intersectional framing, this review acknowledges the intersecting systems of oppression that affect multiply marginalized women inequitably and disproportionately. A sociohistorical, critical lens is applied to acknowledge the well-documented racist origins of reproductive health technologies and ongoing coercive practices that have led to medical mistrust among marginalized and stigmatized communities, particularly racialized LGBTQ+ women, women with disabilities, and women who are poor or incarcerated. Moreover, we discuss the urgent need to center LGBTQ+ women in research and clinical care, community-engaged health promotion efforts, affirming non-heteronormative sexual health education, and health policies that prioritize autonomy and dismantle structural barriers for this population. We conclude with recommendations and future directions in this area to remedy entrenched disparities in health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite wide agreement among practitioners on the need for integration, mental health and peacebuilding practice remain siloed in conflict‐affected contexts. Yet before the integration of these two fields should occur, a revaluation of existing practice is needed. Within the field of mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS), critics have long questioned dominant assumptions and treatment models, raising concerns about top‐down implementation, Western‐centric approaches, and a lack of community leadership. These criticisms are largely echoed within peacebuilding literature. Furthermore, both fields underappreciate the overlap between their practices. For example, the relationship between the structural drivers of poor mental health or the social‐psychological drivers underpinning peacebuilding. Accordingly, this article seeks to contribute to the development of a novel, integrated approach to MHPSS and peacebuilding—or 'psychosocial peacebuilding'. In doing so, we address dominant critiques of both fields, before discussing the relevance of critical (community) psychology as an ideal means in which to bridge a theoretical and practical gap between fields. Using quality peace as a guiding normative theory, we will also reinforce the argument that working to address mental health concerns is essential to creating peace in post‐conflict contexts. It concludes by exploring potential avenues for further research. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information about transnational adoptee search and reunions with first families is limited. Less is known about how adult Colombian transnational adoptees engage in and experience search and reunion. To address this gap in research the current explanatory study explored the first family reunion experiences of 17 adult Colombian transnational adoptees within a liberation psychology framework. Using thematic analysis, the research findings described participants' awareness of search possibilities, preparation for the search, as well as first connection experiences. Participants utilized a variety of communicative strategies for contact with first families and shared their experiences accessing search assistance. Participants reported a broad array of emotional experiences throughout the process and offered recommendations to include cultivating support and preparation strategies for other Colombian adoptees considering a search for first families. Implications for Colombian transnational adoptees, adoptive families, and adoption professionals are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarship on girlhood—especially for girls of Color—is often relegated to studying risk and emphasizing individual deficits over humanizing girls and centering their voices. This approach to generating scholarship renders oppressive systems and processes invisible from inquiry and unaddressed by practice, with particularly insidious consequences for youth in the legal system. Critical youth participatory action research (YPAR) is acknowledged as an antidote to these conceptualizations because it resists deficit‐oriented narratives circling systems‐impacted youth by inviting them to the knowledge‐generating table. In this paper, we present an empirical analysis of the promises and perils that emerged as we conducted a year‐long critical YPAR project alongside five system‐impacted girls of Color. Our thematic analysis of process notes (30 meetings, 120 h) documents the stories posited by girls, in a democratized space, about the injustices of interconnected institutions, and unearths a complicated tension for both youth and adult coresearchers around the promises and perils of engaging in YPAR within the academy. These findings underscore the importance of using intersectional, collaborative research to challenge perceptions around how we legitimize knowledge. We describe lessons learned in conducting YPAR in academic settings and highlight recommendations to grow youth–adult partnerships within oppressive systems to share power. Highlights: Critical YPAR is heralded as a liberatory epistemology for social justice committed research. We conducted critical YPAR with system‐impacted girls of Color. We synthesize the promises and perils of critical YPAR in a research‐intensive university setting. We name the limits inherent in imperial logics and structures between academia and legal systems. Recommendations focus on structural changes at the nexus of academia and other systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present qualitative study, we draw from a psychological framework of radical healing in communities of color to explore Black mother's perspectives on what it means to raise free, Black children in the anti-Black racial context of the United States of America. Specifically, we consider the extent to which Black mother's descriptions about supporting their children's freedom involve new cultural and social norms that integrate personal wellness with collective social justice practices. We used consensual qualitative research methods to analyze semi-structured interview data from 31 Black mothers (28–50 years, M = 35, SD = 6.03) with children ranging from 6 months to 21 years old. We identified the following themes: promoting pro-Black critical consciousness, encouraging self-authentic expression through socioemotional support, and building strength and resistance through community care. Overall, we found that mothers viewed raising free, Black children as an inherent act of social justice, since they hoped to help their children learn to identify oppressive forces and engage in community-level efforts to promote social change and build a life-affirming future for themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1983, the world ʼs first rehabilitation centre for torture victims opened in Copenhagen. Individual Chilean activists in European exile had already set up smaller psychosocial centres before. In the dictatorships of the Cono Sur and Central America, but also in other parts of the world, local human rights activists had also begun to join theory and practice of their struggle for liberation with the psychosocial care of survivors of socio-political traumatization processes. Liberation psychology, which also reached the founders of the first European centres through international solidarity, played a key role in this. The essay traces this intertwined history of liberation struggles, human rights work, international solidarity and the founding of therapy centres. From the very beginning, the fight against torture focused on the individual and social rehabilitation of survivors as well as the criminal prosecution of perpetrators. Today, however, many of the centres that have since been founded in numerous German cities have swapped this orientation for a self-image as pure care facilities. Additional political commitment focuses at best on supporting traumatized refugees in Germany. The authors therefore call for a revitalization of international solidarity partisanship in German psychosocial centres and for reconstructing their self-image of being part of the international human rights movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When Seymour Sarason, the founder of American community psychology, looked back on his life and work, he singled out the importance of personal humility and of developing collaborative learning relationships. He worried that humility was too lacking in psychology. To cultivate humility, we need to engage in an ongoing practice of critical self‐ and group‐examination that enables us to understand more fully the effects of our positionalities, historical, and cultural contexts. Alongside this we need to try to understand the ecopsychosocial and historical contexts of those we have been invited to accompany. For those who are European descended, this requires a deepening realization of how we, as W. E. B. Du Bois would say, have been and are a "problem." Unawares, we have saturated psychology with our own cultural perspectives and ways of being. "White" people require their own pedagogy to become more conscious of their standpoints and to redress the harms created by their group. Our task is not to evangelize psychological theories and practices born from within our own particular cultural perspective, but to learn from the cultural workers and community members in the group we are working with. We must ask of ourselves questions that enable us to understand the broader historical, social, and ecological context of the issues that are presenting. To indicate this, I preface the term "accompaniment" with the adjective "ecopsychosocial." Ecopsychosocial accompaniment requires humility. It is humility that opens the door to being able to imagine and desire together, to cocreate, and cosustain the kinds of decolonial spaces, places, and ways of working and living with one another that are so desperately needed. Highlights: Psychologists need to study history of colonialism, racism, and capitalism.Mutual accompaniment is powerful corrective to more vertical and disempowering practices.Psychologists need to discern the effects of unannounced Eurocentric values in theory & practice.Psychologists of European descent needs to turn their research lens on their communities.Liberation psychology can assist willing elites to return excess assets, land & power to common good. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eighty-six percent of psychologists are white, leading to implicit and explicit discrepancies, exclusion, and discrimination against people of color in the discipline. Additionally, academia tends to center white, Eurocentric, and male narratives and experiences in psychology which perpetuates oppression of marginalized communities, especially women of color, in psychology. Thus, in this article, we propose a womanist-liberation framework to support radical healing of women of color in psychology and, ultimately, growth of the discipline. We share reflexive narratives called testimonios to describe our experiences as women of color in academia, in the hopes of encouraging reflection, developing insight, cultivating compassion, and inciting social justice action amongst our readers. Lastly, we propose recommendations stemming from a womanist-liberation framework to make psychology more inclusive, responsive, attuned, and liberatory toward the experiences of women of color. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature underscores gaps between mental health services and Black and Brown communities in relation to accessibility and cultural responsivity. Therapists for Protester Wellness (T4PW) was created to bridge these gaps during the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement and the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. This conceptual article highlights connections among tenets of the Radical Healing framework, liberation psychology, and the mission and content of T4PW to demonstrate a culturally responsive way to support Black and Brown communities during social unrest through therapeutic and collectivistic support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Black feminismhas somuch to offer. Its philosophical, intellectual, and activist practice grounded in the experiences of Black women is a source of healing and liberation. Building on the Black feminist tradition, the current article introduces an intersectional and practical healing framework titled Blafemme Healing. The framework is designed to support individuals in exploring personal healing regardless of their social location while intentionally providingmechanisms for increasing the experience and outcome of wellness, equity, love, liberation, and survival for Black people. The framework includes eight areas, or chambers, that require people's attention if we are to achieve personal and collective wellness. The author, a Black queer cisgender woman pursuing personal and collective wellness and healing through and beyond the field of psychology, uses the biomythography method to introduce and describe Blafemme Healing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The importance of preparing counselors to be social justice‐oriented practitioners is established, though there is a need for models of social justice training. In this study, we describe a pilot program of the Social Justice Consultation Corps. We identify the theoretical foundations, describe activities, and present implications for future directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Depictions of Muslims as violent and misogynistic in the media require a theoretical and concrete response from Muslims, particularly Muslim women. The tradition of liberation psychology (LP) contains a framework for theorizing alternatives to hegemonic narratives in the foundational concepts of de-ideologizing reality and utilizing the virtues of the people. Islamic feminist LP, a rapidly expanding field of liberation theory, has a particular interest in these concepts. This article contributes to the building of Islamic feminist LP by exploring peacebuilding in the work of three women in the San Francisco Bay Area community as key informants. These women's experiences in community organizing around parenting and restorative justice show how Muslim women are transforming society through peacebuilding. Public Significance Statement: This article contributes new ideas to the growing field of Islamic liberation psychology. Additionally, the use of case studies to present evidence contributes to the possibilities of research outside of the academy. The conclusion that Muslim women are working toward peace in their day-to-day lives through restorative justice and parenting elevates the voices of Muslim women as they are, separate from media representations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociopolitical development (SPD) is the process by which people come to understand structural oppression and develop the capacity to reform and transform society, combat oppression, and achieve liberation. In this article, we honor and recognize the community-based framework building of Dr. Roderick Watts and his colleagues, scholars of African descent who pioneered SPD. First, we describe the history and evolution of SPD as both stage and process models of development rooted in Black liberation psychology. We then highlight several contributions of SPD to psychology research and practice including the relevance of sociocultural factors; the integration of intersectionality, well-being, and healing; and the role of context. Throughout, we share parts of conversations with several pioneering SPD scholars regarding the importance of this framework to both Black psychology and psychology broadly. We conclude with recommendations for how psychologists can integrate SPD into their research and practice, as one way to challenge anti-Black racism and reimagine youth resistance against racism and oppression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study sought to understand interpretations of interconnections between historical trauma, contemporary violence, and resilience in a Maya Achi community currently engaged in promoting peace and social change through popular education. In particular, the ways in which participants drew upon identity and memory in articulating characteristics of community distress and resilience are discussed. The research is informed by liberation psychology and critical perspectives of mental health, particularly considering the challenges inherent in the promotion of collective memory of trauma and resistance in contexts of violence and humanitarian settings. Participant reflections on historical and contemporary violence highlight elements of collective distress, connecting identity and memory with acts of both oppression and resistance. Education and development are signaled as possible sites of resilience but also experienced as sites of power upholding the status quo. Diverse experiences and applications of identity and memory provide insight into the ways in which community organizations working in contexts of political violence might navigate polarizing and paradoxical discourses in order to subvert, co-opt, or adapt to hegemonic cultural, political, and economic power relations in the process of transformation for collective resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this conceptual article, we assert that psychology should be transformed to adopt the explicit goal of working toward the liberation of people oppressed by society rather than striving for mere equality. To achieve such a transformation, it is necessary to reenvision graduate training in psychology. Graduate training in psychology is an important vehicle by which psychologists can become prepared to use research and practice to eradicate inequities in society. Therefore, we propose six pillars for liberation-focused graduate training in psychology: critical unlearning/ unknowing, cooperative modes of production, prioritizing indigenous knowledge, embedded interdependence, systems-level action, and prioritizing members of oppressed groups. Although this conceptualization may engender resistance, we argue that there are many potential pathways by which graduate training may use liberation psychology to work equitably with oppressed groups to seek justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State violence in the so-called United States impacting undocumented immigrants living under the construction of (il)legality calls for a decolonial feminist enactment of psychosocial research. This article presents a multi-scalar analysis of the embodied aftermath of state violence, enacted through the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) practice of state disappearances, on two undocumented Latina immigrants. Centering on decolonial feminisms and drawing on liberation psychology and intersectionality, this study investigates the embodied sequelae of living undocumented under the terror of ICE. This study undertakes a secondary analysis of two interviews that were selected from a larger database of in-depth interviews (N = 39). The two stories were selected considering gender and explicitness of the embodied aftermath of psychosocial torture by ICE. The data was gathered in Austin, Texas in 2019, marking a year after the two largest ICE raids in recent history which together resulted in the arrests of at least 304 Latinx immigrants in Central, South, and North Texas. ICE terror has embodied, affective, and material consequences on those who are subjected to such violence; therefore, a decolonial feminist analysis about the embodied impacts of state violence and its sequela contribute to understandings of decolonial feminist enactment of qualitative analytic methods in psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health and health care inequities persist because the efforts to eliminate them have ignored structural racism, typically using a power neutral approach to diagnose and solve the problem. Critical theory can address many of the conceptual weaknesses of current approaches, help identify how racism operates in health care, and open the door for more effective individual employee and organizational actions to advance health equity. We apply Martín-Baró’s (1996) liberation psychology to lessons we learned through implementing a transdisciplinary national health and health care equity program. The program, which began in 2005, conducts equity-focused health services interventions and research, using the best available evidence to assist health and health care policymakers, payers, community-based organizations, care delivery organizations, and patients to transform and align their activities in order to advance health equity. It serves as a rare model to explore how misconceptions resulting from racist structures can hinder progress, even when everyone involved is highly motivated to address health and health care inequities. Liberation psychology guides our interpretation of the lessons learned and recommendations for the field of psychology. Psychologists advancing equity in health and health care should integrate liberation psychology and other critical theories into their own work. In addition, partnerships with other disciplines and communities outside of academia and professional health services are key to success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entering the third year of the COVID-19 era, the United States faces myriad problems with hate speech, misinformation, racial and politically based violence, and deep-rooted institutional abuses. Oppression of minorities making up the majority of the population contributes to mood disorders such as anxiety, depression, and panic disorders. The problem of hate has been an active study by psychologists since World War II, but as of yet publications uniting interdisciplinary hate studies and community psychology are sparse compared to other interests. This essay addresses one such theory, liberation psychology, and how its approach may guide clinicians and institutions to a better understanding and support of communities and individuals with marginalized identities. The essay uses the lens of addressing hate to discuss the main interventions that make up the practical application of liberation psychology, not limited to the use of testimonios (stories of oppression), conscientization (a daily awakening to the impact of oppression), and praxis, how all human service providers should mobilize their resources and education in service of addressing hate against oppressed communities.

Understanding the psychological health of women of color (WOC) in a racialized and gendered society requires accessing, validating, and processing the lived experiences and emotions that stem from interlocking systems of oppression. Despite the importance of responding to the psychological health needs of this population, the group therapy literature on how to design and facilitate group therapy for women of color remains limited. For this reason, the present research aims to identify group therapy-oriented experiences based on data provided by ten women of color group psychotherapists practicing in the United States. Findings from the consensual qualitative research (Hill, 2012) revealed six domains: (a) group development, (b) personal and professional significance, (c) group facilitation behaviors, (d) perceived healing factors, (e) challenges, and (f) advice. Suggestions for future research and recommendations for women of color groups positioned as a wellspring of empowerment, liberation, and psychological health are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decade, interest and research on critical consciousness has increased dramatically. This commentary updates and expands Sociopolitical Development Theory by Watts and Flanagan (Journal of Community Psychology, 35, 2007, 1), elaborating on elements of the theory and linking them to liberation praxis. Expansion included research of the interplay of social identity and Critical Social Analysis (CSA) (i.e., the deconstruction of oppression's causes and effects through a political lens). This exploratory, qualitative project analyzed narratives written by young adults seeking admission to a training program for community‐organizers. The result was a framework of "Viewpoints" relevant to programming for adolescents. Sample quotes illustrate how combinations of CSA and social identities can enrich sociopolitical development and are enriched by intersectionalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This interdisciplinary special issue explores the synergy between psychotherapy and filmmaking—particularly how film can serve as a powerful healing function by bringing voice, representation, and light to the all-too-often overlooked and shadowed aspects of psychological and cultural life, similar to the work of psychotherapy. To understand the culturally therapeutic aspects of filmmaking, this issue features psychological and cinematic insights from two fields of experts and their crafts: scholars and their writing and filmmakers and their films. The unique approach of this special issue provides new possibilities for interdisciplinary collaboration between psychologists and filmmakers to explore the therapeutic function of film for society as well as avenues for film to address, heal, and transform the pressing cultural issues of our times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this edited interview, psychologists Nisha Gupta and Eric Greene interview Lori Jordan Fountain, psychology doctoral student and filmmaker of Inhabitation of Inhibition, an autophenomenological short film about the lived experience of breastfeeding in public. Despite the known benefits, antipathetic attitudes toward nursing in public persist, and "breastfeeding is perceived by many as dirty, sexual, embarrassing, and generally, something that should be kept behind closed doors." Inspired by Sartre's notion of the gaze, the mother in the film takes up the self as seen by the Other. By assuming the guilt of which she is blamed, she embodies and enacts the judgments placed on her, foregrounding the covert oppression endured by breastfeeding mothers. In this interview, Lori describes the liberation felt when responding to the objectifying gaze—a gaze that perceives her as a machine-like milk dispenser, a bad mother, and a sexual object. She shares how satire enables her to 'flip the script' in order to demonstrate, address, and challenge the absurd, oppressive narratives that shame breastfeeding mothers. The conversation explores how protesting this covert oppression through the language of filmmaking allowed Lori to work through it directly and experientially, just as one might in psychotherapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simultaneous to the World Health Organization declaring COVID-19 a pandemic, the 2020 Counseling Psychology Conference was in the final stages of preparation. It was impossible to hold the conference in the midst of university restrictions on nonessential travel and government restrictions of large gatherings. We document the 2020 Counseling Psychology Conference as originally planned for historical purposes and describe the leadership challenges associated with cancellation. Further, we describe the virtual events arising from the 2020 Counseling Psychology Conference that were held to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of Counseling Psychology. Finally, we make recommendations for the field's constituent professional organizations and future leaders for planning future national conferences based on these experiences. Consistent with the theme of the conference, "Counseling Psychology at 75 Years: Reflections on Shared Identity, Cultivating Change, and Building a Counseling Psychology of Liberation," our manuscript is framed from a liberation psychology perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recognising the historical development of systemic theory and practice from its radical roots, I reflect on my positioning as a systemic therapist within the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK in 2020, and describe my journey from family therapist into community based systemic activism which seeks to directly address structural inequality. The concept and practice of Poverty Truth Commissions are examined through a systemic lens, and I outline the design influences in its set up locally, mapping those against historic and current systemic thinking. In the process, I examine my own relationship to money, status, voicing and work.

In the present paper, we join the current dialogue in the field of vocational psychology regarding how neoliberal economic trends across the world have influenced the development of theory and approaches to vocational psychology. We propose an alternative perspective, that viewing career development from an economic justice lens, can provide an alternative to the existing neoliberal influence. An economic justice lens may aid us in moving from solely focusing on individual interventions and outcomes to those that help to create community-level change which in turn help create a more just economy for all. This is more than simply providing interventions to individuals in a community but requires shifting the locus of change to the community level. We detail four proposed career outcomes that center community-level change: Networking, Conscientization, Participation, and Liberation. Opportunities to utilize participatory action research, social network analysis, and other practice methods are encouraged. Finally, we offer examples of how vocational psychologists can take active roles in an economic justice approach to vocational psychology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background A new diagnosis of complex post‐traumatic stress disorder, CPTSD, has been agreed by the World Health Organization, WHO, and evidence is needed for what psychological treatment might be effective, particularly from those with experience of the disorder. We used a novel participatory approach to explore patient views and simultaneously studied the impact on the patient researchers of the research process itself. In this paper, we report on the latter section of the study how the involvement in research of patients with CPTSD affected their mental health. Symptoms of CPTSD may include emotional dysregulation, feelings of self‐worthlessness and difficulties in relationships. Objective The aim of this study section was to explore whether patients’ mental health could be promoted through empowering them to participate in research on CPTSD. Design The study had a qualitative, participatory design. The clinician who led the research (first author) held group meetings with patient researchers to explore the impact of the research process. The clinician also kept notes on the process in a reflective log. Setting and participants Six patient researchers participated in research with other patients with lived experience of CPTSD in an NHS outpatient unit in a London hospital. Intervention studied The research process itself was analysed in group meetings with researchers which the clinician recorded and transcribed. Findings Participation in research may promote increased self‐confidence and social inclusion for those with CPTSD. Conclusion Involvement in research may be seen as an empowering intervention because patients felt it contributed to recovery.