Perspectives, Limitations, and Dialogues of Psychosocial Accompaniment in Current Psychological Practices

On August 29, in the presence of a hundred students and professors of the psychology major at the Faculty of Higher Studies Zaragoza (FES-Zaragoza) of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), we presented the new version of our booklets "Keys to Psychosocial Accompaniment".

To deepen our reflections on the content of our most recent publication, we were joined on the panel by university professor Mario Ayala and Bianca Pérez, director of Sorece Association of Feminist Psychologists and specialist in psychosocial support for victims of violence. The moderator of our meeting with the students and academic community was Diana García, a young graduate of the FES.

Luna Fuentes, representing Aluna, commented that the booklets, in addition to providing a detailed description of our support model, break down some examples of thematic approaches from a psychosocial perspective. Such is the case of fear, where Aluna recovers the psychosocial dialogues of Ignacio Martín-Baró, who considers it a tool for political repression, used to cause paralysis, silencing, and normalization in the population in the face of State abuses and power.

"Because when we are dealing with survivors of State violence, it becomes important to allow space for reflecting on this emotion from its social complexity, which allows people to better understand their experience and feelings. Guilt and the sensation of isolation begin to transform into routes of collective possibilities to face fears as a group, together with other people; paralysis becomes a question and, at the same time, the possibility of an answer: What are we talking about when we say we are afraid? What happens when it is the system itself that seeks to cause panic among the population? How can we politicize fear so that it becomes an ally to alert us and not to paralyze us?"

Luna Fuentes explained that we talk about "Keys" in the title of our booklets because

"they are not absolute or exhausted truths but rather guidelines and findings that, in the praxis of accompanying, emerged in comparison with the experiences of others, finding beacons and lanterns along the way to name and give meaning to the practice of accompanying and being accompanied, as a relational place that is built with/among and from the other."

Our spokesperson in this dialogue stated:

"It is like the metaphor of the paths that are easier to travel when someone gives us a map, not to take away our possibilities of exploring beyond them but to allow us to return to them when we might want to rethink steps or actions. Accordingly, we leave them clarities and also questions, so they might make their own marks on top of them, whether it be to cross out routes or to underline notes, and, in the end, to develop their own map."

Learn about our complete intervention here.