Liberation Psychology

Abstract

The author presents his construction of Liberation Psychology as an innovative interpretation of the social creativity of Martin Luther King, Jr., using the beloved community as an organizing metaphor. Dr. King worked and died for the community and national fulfillment of basic need satisfaction. He saw that need deprivation is oppressive. The author focuses on the interplay of the fulfillment of basic need categories, influenced by humanistic, transpersonal, and developmental psychologies, with themes of spiritual and existential life influenced by the Native American tradition. Basic human need fulfillment enabled Dr. King to become one of the most creative and influential leaders of our time who offered our world an image of living together without the soul destroying violence of racism, sexism, poverty, and war. The article reveals the “how” of Dr. King’s dream of the beloved community, showing that basic human need fulfillment through social creativity makes the beloved community possible.