Psychological Accompaniment: Construction of Cultures of Peace Among a Community Affected by War

Abstract

(from the chapter) We define psychosocial accompaniment as an encounter between the community and the social psychologists with the goal of constructing liberating knowledge. In this respect, our principal sources have been Zabala (1974), Paulo Freire (1969), Orlando Fals Borda (1979), and Ignacio Martin-Baro (1990) for their works present their engagement with social and critical emancipation from dominant structures and state their commitment with the oppressed. The process must be orientated toward helping the community to give new meaning to the feelings associated with the painful experiences it has lived (Sacipa, Tovar, & Galindo, 2005). In this process, it is necessary to encourage conversations and to promote collective and individual reflections. In this context, it is important to have an ethical commitment to be the bridge between the individual subject and their culture in such a manner as to allow both to construct a new order in which interactions and practical dialogs can coexist (Castro Largo & Sacipa, 1998). Although in Colombia, at the moment, a considerable number of displaced people receive both humanitarian and some psychosocial attention, very few people are offered any kind of formal accompaniment. Psychosocial accompaniment is a process offering the displaced person a space to recognize their emotional experience along with the possibility to express their feelings afterward, reflecting on the facts implied by violent acts. We speak of a psychosocial process that facilitates recuperation and the repair of social and cultural damage. We believe that accompaniment should be directed toward the affirmation of displaced persons as subjects in their own stories and the reconstruction of the social fabric of the community. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).