| Oppression can grind events that would otherwise be considered traumatic into the hearts and minds of the oppressed. Eventually, they may consider the oppression they experience normal, acceptable (even, for some, deserved). Hopelessness and helplessness become the dominant themes of their experience.
The heart of the liberation movement is based on the expectation that this hopelessness and helplessness could in some way be overcome and that the conditions of oppression can be escaped or destroyed. In other words, liberation theology, education, and psychology bank on the human resilience buried in the hearts of the oppressed.
Even in the midst of the most oppressive of circumstances there emerges individuals with a seemingly indomitable spirit and a sense of nobility and warmth, while others are beaten down, embittered, defeated. Sometimes the individuals manifesting such resilience emerge as leaders; at other times, they are simple people who, in their obscurity, give others a sense a purpose and hope.
Recent revelations resulting from DNA studies have isolated Serotonin transporting genes that to some extent determine the ability of an individual to maintain a degree of hope and meaning despite the circumstances. On the other end of the spectrum, in a conference of California Mental Health Advocates for Children and Youth (CMHACY) I attended in Monterey, California (5/29&30/02), Mark Katz Ph.D., maintains that, in the end, "Context trumps character."
Some innately can resist the despair of depression better than others. At the same time, some combination of events in the person's life, or an aspect of some relationship, liberated that person -- or, perhaps, even a group of people -- from the destructive outcome. Learning to attach new meaning to the adversities we endure is the key to resilience. Whereas people can come to their own realizations, it would be the effort of the liberation psychologist to, in some way, be a catalyst in this process for the oppressed. Listening without prejudgment or hidden agenda to the marginalized may indeed be a new, even a turning point, experience for them. To value and validate their struggle may help them believe that there is meaning in it.
It is not enough to simply listen. Dr. Katz spoke about mental health intervention providing a temporary buffer to the risks people experience and, then, when the person "graduates from treatment", the risks endure and even accumulate. Efforts like community organizing (along the lines and around issues dictated by the oppressed), base Christian communities ("comunidades de base"), even religious affiliation (in a faith that focuses on more than future deliverance) are integral to opening the doors to hope and resiliency for the oppressed. Direct practice is a bandage over a wound that refuses to heal if the mental-health practitioner is not working, at the same time, on social change.
Finally, Dr. Katz spoke about "harnessing the transforming power of bystander behavior." We all know the culpability of the "innocent bystander" when evil is center stage. Dr. Katz described the bystander as not uncaring but unsure. However, when the bystander knows what to do and how they are supposed to act, they can effect change. In the face of oppression, whether it be poverty in the Third World or homelessness in the cities of America, most of us stand frozen. The proportions of the problem seem overwhelming. Perhaps the most important work of liberation psychology would be to mobilize the inertia of the more fortunate, that the immense reservoirs of care can be uncorked and resiliency may be possible for those suffering indignity, poverty, helplessness, and hopelessness.
Ultimately resiliency occurs when liberation is at work. When risk factors are beyond endurance, stress is experienced as permanent, pervasive and personal. The natural outcome to this situation is rage. With change of world view, coming from not so much as a change of lived experience as much as a change of belief about the meaning of those experiences, the liberated person now sees good things as well as permanent, pervasive and personal.
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