c. 1997 Religion News Service
WASHINGTON _ Along with cherry pie, fireworks and patriotic marching bands, the nation celebrates its birthday this year deep in a debate about national identity and the meaning of citizenship.
It’s a debate fueled by President Clinton’s call for a new conversation on race, the continuing battles over immigration and English-only laws, and questions of how multiculturalism, diversity and pluralism fit in American life.
But as policy-makers, pundits and academics debate how to overcome group conflicts created by the American multiracial and multicultural reality, small grassroots groups are struggling with those tensions closer to home.
Many of those groups are using an intense form of dialogue called”process work,”a group dynamic based on psychological principles developed by analyst Arnold Mindell of the Process Work Center of Portland, Ore., and author”Sitting in the Fire”(Lao Tse Press). His work seeks to make conscious the hidden emotional undercurrents surrounding charged social issues _ like racism _ that are rarely addressed in the public arena.
According to Mindell, it is this inability on the part of mainstream society to address powerful emotions, such as anger and sorrow over oppression, that ultimately sabotages the best intentions of the political process to bring about racial and intergroup harmony.”From kindergarten to Ph.D. programs, and from churches to bowling alleys,none of us have ever been taught how to process group feelings _ only how to repress group tension,”Mindell says.
The concept of group therapy in a public place initially arose from his work as an analyst in private practice, says Mindell, schooled in the theories of the pioneering Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung.”I found that when those individuals I had treated returned to their jobs and relationships, their problems reappeared.”I began to realize that psychology was not applying itself to large group problems and tensions from ethnicity, and that it was mostly directed to the white mainstream,”he said.
In the current climate of multiracial conflict roiling American society, Mindell’s approach has been used over the last decade by businesses, churches, non-profit organizations and even city governments and agencies to help heal differences.
Just how does”process work”work?
As Mindell explains it, public group therapy begins by participants describing the”invisible field,”or emotional atmosphere characterizing the organization.”Is it relaxed or tense? Is it easy to speak out, or is there a lot of yelling?” Participants who are unfamiliar with speaking out then negotiate among themselves the limits of emotional honesty they can endure.
Next, he said, individual members offer their ideas about why they think their group acts a particular way and how it has affected them personally. Last, Mindell urges participants to”play out the roles in back of the tension,”such as the”social rulemaker”who dampens expression, or the person ignorant of the effects of racism. Enacting these roles, he says, is what allows the atmosphere in the group to become more open and inclusive.
An important difference between process work and other forms of diversity training, according to John L. Johnson, a retired professor from the University of the District of Columbia who is also the city’s process work facilitator, is its conspicuous lack of”political correctness.””If someone (in the group) wants to call me the worst racial epithet they can think of, they should go ahead,”said Johnson, an African-American.”But they should also be prepared for what my reaction might be.” To Johnson, this kind of raw exchange within the safe”container”of a group committed to exploring concealed prejudices is what permits genuine healing. “Those hidden attitudes which are never thoroughly brought out are what continue to make society sick,”he said.”As with cancer, if you allow it to grow into a malignant mass, it will eventually consume the body. Racism is one of those things that consumes the whole political process and we have to be able to deal openly with it.” Time limits and emotional constraints can also block communication between those of different racial backgrounds. Johnson cites South Africa’s retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s”Truth and Reconciliation Commission,”with its emphasis on victims’ outpouring of strong emotion, as an example of the kind of process work he aims for in this country.”Testimony,”he said,”is the first step in the release of the pain caused by oppression. And you cannot say what has to be said about 450 years of oppression in this country in two minutes.” As difficult a time as some Americans may have learning the skills of racial reconciliation, proponents of process work believe the country is uniquely poised to become a role model to a world struggling with identity politics based on ethnicity.”Addressing issues of diversity is a very American thing to do,”said Mindell, who has facilitated process groups in more than 40 countries, including Ireland and India.”Other people in the world do it much less. Thus, the United States has a very special gift to give.” (BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM)
But, he added,”The principles of democracy upon which this country was originally founded must deepen in order to fulfill America’s dream of multiculturalism.” The Greek word for democracy, he notes, means”citizen power.””That was a great step forward from a ruling dictatorship or monarchy. But it’s still a model that’s based on power, rather than dialogue between the different factions. As a result, despite all the civil rights regulations that have been enacted, riots erupt because the problem of anger and prejudice hasn’t been addressed. A deeper democracy will have dialogue and human understanding as its basis.” (END OPTIONAL TRIM)
It is the pursuit of”deep democracy”that first drew the Rev. Douglas Williams, a Jungian analyst and Episcopal priest in Peterborough, N.H., to organize his first process group meeting on a Fourth of July three years ago. “It would be a good thing if, on our nation’s birthday, we could realize … what real freedom for us would be,”he said of his motivation.”Racism is an institutional force that oppresses the people in the mainstream as well as its victims, people of color. Thus it prohibits us from being really free in ways that we have the potential for.”
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