From Vygotsky to Martín Baró: Dealing with Language and Liberation During the Supervision Process

The liberation psychology movement first began in the 1980’s when Ignacio Martín Baró of Central America first coined the term. The principles of liberation psychology outline a series of action-oriented charges that have pragmatic use in supervision, particularly with regard to the use of language in the clinical supervision process. While the issue(s) of language and the supervision process have not been completely ignored, the studies are sparse, and those found rarely included the dynamics of oppression or the potential for imposition of values from supervisor to supervisee. This manuscript intends to re-introduce Vygotsky's model of supervision (Hess, 2008), as interpreted by Martín Baró (2005), with an emphasis on the use of language and language dynamics in the supervisory process. The manuscript will delineate the principles and urgent tasks of liberation psychology and the implications of language in an action-oriented supervisory process. Implications and conclusions are discussed.