Mutual Accompaniment and the Creation of the Commons

A landmark book that maps a radical model not only for the "helping" professions but for the work of solidarity

This timely and pathbreaking volume maps a radical model of accompaniment, exploring its profound implications for solidarity. Psychosocial and ecological accompaniment is a mode of responsive assistance that combines psychosocial understanding with political and cultural action. Accompaniment--grounded in horizontality, interdependence, and potential mutuality--moves away from hierarchical and unidirectional helping-profession approaches that decontextualize suffering. Watkins envisions a powerful paradigm of mutual solidarity with profound implications for creating commons in the face of societal division and indifference to suffering.

Mary Watkins, a leading voice in liberation psychology, is co-author of Toward Psychologies of Liberation, Up Against the Wall: Re-Imagining the U.S.-Mexico Border, and Talking with Young Children about Adoption, and is author of Waking Dreams and Invisible Guests: The Development of Imaginal Dialogues. She is co-founder of the Community, Liberation, Indigenous, and Eco-Psychologies graduate specialization at Pacifica Graduate Institute.