The Kindred Fields of Black Liberation Theology and Liberation Psychology: A Critical Essay on their Conceptual Base and Destiny

Abstract

The field of liberation psychology, an appellation for one of the more salient aspects of African (Black) psychology, is discussed in light of its theoretical and actual kindredness with the field of Black liberation theology. These two fields are so strikingly similar in their origin, essence, and contemporary unfolding that analogizing them yielded 15 points of comparison that are nontrivial to the establishment of each one. Because it is argued that Black liberation theology is fundamentally a failure, the question of how liberation psychology-African (Black) psychology-can avoid this same failure, which is in the offing, is addressed. How Black liberation theology can right itself is pointed out as well.