Ethnicity and Empowerment: Implications for Psychological Training in the 1980s

Psychological services, as a part of the health-care system, have been “embedded in specific configurations of cultural meanings and social relationships,” and the role of patients and healers cannot be understood apart from that context. This article explores the failure of psychology to effectively address the inhibiting impact of racism on human development, and it suggests a corrective agenda for the training of socially responsive and responsible psychologists, an agenda derived from the literacy education model of Paulo Freire.