to refer to them. The term "liberation psychology" (or psicología de la liberación) may have first appeared in print in 1976. It was later brought into widespread use by Ignacio Martín-Baró. A number of other Latin American social psychologists have also developed and promoted the approach, including Martiza Montero (Venezuela), Ignacio Dobles (Costa Rica), Bernardo Jiménez Dominguez (Colombia/Mexico), Jorge Mario Flores (Mexico), Edgar Barrero (Colombia) and Raquel Guzzo (Brazil) among others. A number of similar approaches developed independently in other regions of the World, including South Africa and the Philippines. Founder The genesis of liberation psychology began amongst a body of psychologists in Latin America in the 1970s. Ignacio Martín-Baró is credited as the founder of liberation psychology, and it was further developed by others. Martín-Baró was a Spanish-born Jesuit priest and social psychologist who dedicated his work to addressing the needs of oppressed groups in Latin America, and ultimately was assassinated as a result of his work. His project of constructing a psychology relevant to the oppressed majorities of the American continent was therefore terminated prematurely. The collection of some of his articles in the collection Writings for a Liberation Psychology is a seminal text in the field that discusses the role of psychology as socially transformative. Most of his work still remains untranslated into English. His two major textbooks, Social Psychology from Central America, and his other books are published by a small University publisher, UCA editores in El Salvador with the consequence that the breadth and depth of his work is not well known even in Latin America.Martin-Baró conducted research projects with the intention of raising awareness and providing empowerment to oppressed people of El Salvador undergoing social, political, and war-related trauma. Key concepts The central concepts of liberation psychology include: concientización; realismo-crítico; de-ideologization; a social orientation; the preferential option for the oppressed majorities, and methodological eclecticism. Concientización The intrinsic connectedness of the person's experience and the sociopolitical structure is a fundamental tenet of liberation psychology and is referred to as concientización, a term introduced by the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, roughly translatable as the raising of politico-social consciousness. In this process people become more conscious of themselves and their lives as structured by the social reality of oppression, understood structurally, and they thereby become social actors. They change as they begin to act on their social circumstances. Understanding this interconnectedness is of particular importance to understanding