Dr. Carolina Luz de la Torre Molina, one of the most influential psychologists in Cuba, passed away this Friday morning at the age of 79. The Cuban Society of Psychology announced her death in a statement on social media, describing her life and work as leaving a "deep imprint on the psychological science, culture, and society of Cuba."
Born in Matanzas in 1947, a member of a family with deep intellectual roots, De la Torre graduated from the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Havana in 1971 and obtained her Doctorate in Psychological Sciences at Lomonosov Moscow State University in 1982.
Since 1983, she served as a tenured professor at that Havana faculty, where she taught subjects such as the History of Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Social Psychology, and Political Psychology for over four decades. She also participated in academic committees and supervised dozens of undergraduate and graduate theses.
She was the president of the Cuban Society of Psychology and, at the time of her death, held the title of Honorary Member of that institution, which defined her as “a highly skilled educator and researcher, an intellectual committed to her time, and a woman of critical thought, whose work always championed the social meaning of Psychology.”
Among his most recognized books are Latin American Psychology: Between Dependency and Identity —Winner of the Academy of Sciences of Cuba Award, reprinted in Puerto Rico and Argentina— and Identities: A Perspective from Psychology, which received the National Scientific Critique Award and the Catauro Cubano Award from the Fernando Ortiz Foundation.
The Society emphasized that "its legacy transcends recognition: it lives on in the ideas that prompted us to question, in the questions it taught us to formulate, and in the generations of students and professionals it inspired."
De la Torre was also a critical voice during times of political tension. In 2020, she questioned the repudiation rallies against activists linked to the San Isidro Movement, and in 2021 denounced the lack of freedoms in Cuba. In March 2026, she supported her son Abel Tablada, an architect and professor at CUJAE, following the non-renewal of his teaching contract due to critical posts about the government.
Months later, her reflections on the Cuban reality triggered what could be interpreted as a public response from her daughter Johana Tablada, a diplomat with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, highlighting a possible tension that reflected the contradictions or fractures that the country's crisis, after decades of dictatorship, has caused, even within families.
The news sparked an outpouring of condolences on social media. The psychologist Annia Almeyda Vázquez remembered her as «a brave woman, free-thinking, with precise and sharp words when necessary. A woman who was unafraid to think for herself and say what she believed». The alumna Juliette Isabel Fernández Estrada wrote that De la Torre was «the almost miraculous proof of how one could be a brilliant academic woman, have completed a doctorate in another country, write books, raise four children, and be a divorced mother. Of how one could be intelligent, honest, brave, energetic, funny, and magnetic».
Their children reacted to the institutional statement with words filled with pain. Abel Tablada wrote: "Thank you very much for this beautiful recognition; there is so much pain and pride from your children as well." Johana Tablada responded with few but heartfelt words: "Thank you so much, oh my dear mom."
In November 2025, De la Torre had given an extensive interview to OnCuba from Miami, in which she declared: "Nothing has given or gives more meaning to my existence than my family; both my immediate family, where I grew up, and, in a more mature and conscious way, the family I have formed."
"You only leave behind intelligence, courage, and love in your great journey through this world. Strength for your children and for all those who loved and respected you," wrote the Cuban academic and psychologist María Margarita Alonso Alonso in one of the hundreds of messages that flooded social media in tribute to someone who, for generations of students, was much more than a teacher.
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