We believe in the future of psychology

With the aim of understanding the needs and problems from the critical and contextualized praxis in Colombia and the reflexivity of the community psychologist, the First Symposium of Social and Community Psychology was held on April 29, 2021 at UCundinamarca, in which students and teachers from the Psychology program of the University of Cundinamarca, Facatativá extension, participated.

The event featured expert speakers such as psychologists Ana Mercedes Abreo Ortiz, Néstor Mario Noreña Noreña, Jenny Patricia Bustos Abril, and Juliet Carolina Castro Morales. Topics discussed included fostering dialogic conversations that challenge dichotomous views of reality, the academic training of future professionals, the role of education in building a community-based social psychology, and how to enhance the impact of psychology professionals within the community.

“The First Symposium on Community Social Psychology: Reflections, Contexts and Praxis, was conceived as a space for discussion based on the experience and trajectory of the speakers, in order to arrive at understandings and reflections on community social psychology in its challenges, trends, openings and novel acts, which the psychologist faces in the Colombian context,” said the professor of the psychology program Adrián Galindo.

The professor explained that the psychology program at the University of Cundinamarca, Facatativá campus, is characterized by contextual, territorial, and cultural factors, among others. Through this program, the practice, reflections, and contexts of Community Social Psychology are strengthened. The Western Savannah region is a significant territory for the role of the community social psychologist, who articulates and recreates change by considering institutional logics, the diverse characteristics of the population, and current trends that lead to a dialogue of knowledge.

During the first symposium, the guests explained that community social psychology involves an ethical and political exercise in the recursive agency of the intervention of multiple realities in the everyday context of human, social and ecological relationships, intertwined in real and virtual environments, which enhance the growing possibilities of social systems and their transformative praxis.

Thus, according to experts, there have been diverse approaches to social psychology, seeking to denounce and emancipate everyday and complex actions to promote reflective, generative, enabling and recursive capacities between the social psychologist and the communities, in a constant opening and flexibility of critical praxis as a mobilizer of the human and its contexts.

Who were the speakers?

Ana Mercedes Abreo Ortiz

Psychologist from the Konrad Lorenz University Foundation, Bogotá, Colombia; Master's in Clinical and Family Psychology from the Santo Tomás de Aquino University, Bogotá, Colombia; Master's in Philosophy from the Javeriana University, Bogotá, Colombia; Diploma in Psychology and Art from the Javeriana University, Bogotá, Colombia. Experience in university teaching, as well as in psychosocial research and intervention in the fields of violence, family, and childhood with a transdisciplinary approach.

Consultant and family therapist specializing in systemic-constructivist approaches in conjunction with Ecopsychology. Speaker at national and international conferences. Author of numerous research and reflective articles on psychology and philosophy published nationally and internationally. Contributor to the digital magazine ArtyHum in Vigo, Spain. Currently researching ancestral philosophies and existential counseling from this perspective.

Nestor Mario Noreña Noreña

Psychologist specializing in Theories, Methods, and Techniques of Social Research from the National Pedagogical University, Bogotá, Colombia; Master's in Education from Santo Tomás University, Bogotá, Colombia. Experience in university teaching at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Extensive research experience in social sciences and educational sciences, from a narrative and socio-constructionist perspective. Author of the book "Reflections." Currently, a professor in the Master's program in Education offered by the University of Cundinamarca.

Jenny Patricia Bustos Abril

Psychologist, Master's in Interdisciplinary Social Research. Initial doctoral studies in Complex Thought. Experience in university teaching, especially as a tutor for undergraduate social psychology practicums.

Juliet Carolina Castro Morales

A psychologist graduated from the National University of Colombia in Bogotá, she holds a master's degree in Education from the Federal University of Bahia. She is an experienced educator in areas related to interculturality, social and community psychology, media and cyberculture, and education for older adults. Her research focuses on intergenerational practices and education for health value creation. She is the founder of Lazos Humanos, which is currently part of the Keralty group and focuses on projects related to the care, self-care, and training of older adults, caregivers, and family members of older adults, from a social and community perspective.

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