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Aluna Psychosocial Accompaniment

Keys to Psychosocial Accompaniment (2 ed.)


The series “Keys to Psychosocial Accompaniment” is a collective product. In early 2014, Aluna Psychosocial Accompaniment convened a small group of hu­man rights defenders who accompany victims of sociopolitical violence in Mex­ico to conduct study seminars on the psychosocial approach. In workshops, we considered concepts, context analysis, examples, and tools of psychosocial accompaniment to address acts of political repression and fear, forced disap­pearance, forced displacement, arbitrary detention, torture, and sexual torture. In addition, the strengthening of those who accompany was also included.


Knowledge and tools emerged from these exchanges, but so did questions and challenges about psychosocial accompaniment: What is its scope and limita­tions? What preconceived ideas do accompanists have that limit the process? What is our role in political projects of social transformation? How do we adapt our work within the context of the current social and political violence in Mex­ico? How do we contribute to a social psychology that liberates rather than controlling and dominating? We extend our warm thanks to the participants of the first cycle of the psychosocial accompaniment workshops—held between 2014 and 2015—for accepting our invitation to reflect, share, debate, and build around our work.


The growth and consolidation of Aluna has involved great contributions from each of the people who make up the organization. Through their practice and commitment, they have provided feedback on these reflections and contributed to the psychosocial accompaniment model. In 2021, as a work team, we tasked ourselves with editing these booklets to incorporate some theoretical and prac­tical keys that have complemented Aluna Psychosocial Accompaniment’s jour­ney with political subjects throughout our first ten years, both in accompani­ment processes and in educational spaces and workshops within Latin America and transnationally.


We hope these efforts will contribute to political subjects’ struggle to achieve justice and reparation, that it contributes to social transformation, to strength­ening hope, and to encouraging more people to do accompaniment work and build more and better bases for psychosocial accompaniment together.

Aluna thanks all those who have supported the development of the previous editions of this series of booklets with commitment and solidarity.


We dedicate this work to the victims of sociopolitical violence in Mexico, Latin America, and other parts of the world. They have allowed us to accompany them in their pain and anger and let us witness the transformation of ignomi­ny into struggle, solidarity, and hope. We have shared this transformation by recognizing and experiencing the impacts as well as by putting the multiple and diverse ways of coping with the damag