Liberation Health Model – Dawn Belkin Martinez, PhD, LICSW

Episode 65
Guest: Dawn Belkin Martinez, PhD, LICSW
Host: Shimon Cohen, LCSW

Dr. Dawn Belkin Martinez, Associate Dean for Equity and Inclusion at Boston University School of Social Work, discusses the Liberation Health Model, which she co-created as a transformative, sociopolitical approach to assessment and intervention. Rooted in radical traditions including Black feminism, Brazilian mental health movements, and Marxist theory, the model originated in a hospital psych unit through collaboration with patients and families. Dr. Martinez explains how to use the Liberation Health Triangle for assessment and shares tools like deconstructing dominant messages and recovering historical memory. This powerful model offers a flexible, collective liberation framework that encourages authentic, action-oriented practice.

In this episode:

• The origin story of the Liberation Health Model
• Using the Liberation Health Triangle for sociopolitical assessment
• Deconstructing dominant worldview messages with clients
• Activism as a therapeutic intervention
• How the model works alongside other approaches like ACT and CBT

www.bostonliberationhealth.org
Email dawnbm@bu.edu

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Music credit
"District Four" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/