Paz Guarderas, PhD, director of the school of psychology, took part in the 5th Congress of the Latin American Association for the Education and Teaching of Psychology (ALFEPSI for its acronym in Spanish) which was held at Universidad Autonoma de Centro de America, San Jose, Costa Rica from the 7th to the 10th of September.

The main topic of this event was "Do and think Psychology with Latin America" and it was attended by professors, writers, researchers and students from Latin American countries in the fields of human sciences, social sciences and health. Here, they shared their academic and professional experience to help develop psychology for the well-being and development of the population.

UPS was a sponsor of this Congress and is now a member of the ALFEPSI, for Professor Guarderas this "strengthens research between professors and allows results to be compared to that of other countries; it favors student mobility in order to generate processes of knowledge exchange", she said.

Professors Guarderas presented her paper titled "Intervención psicosocial y violencia de género: tramoyas personajes y tramas"  which questions two types of mechanisms: clinical victimology and the paradigm of salvation performed by professionals in Psychology of municipal services on gender violence, subjects of intervention and their performance in attention regarding the issue. He placed the role of psychologists as a political action to transform practices and speeches, negotiate meanings and build new meanings for a true encounter between users and professionals.

For professor Guarderas, the congress was very enriching because she was able to find people who are concerned about the same issues, meet other professors, discuss the role of psychologists in Latin America and question the colonialism of knowledge.