Voices post

I’m honestly surprised at the amount of people here that were dissatisfied with the Voices of Discovery program. I can’t speak for anyone else of course, but for me, everything went pretty much as I expected. I’m not sure how many people have ever attended group therapy, but for me, that’s what the whole thing felt like to me. It was a lot of making sure everybody was comfortable in the so-called sharing space, talking about things that were controversial but being extremely careful not to step on any toes. And maybe it was because of the group I was in (Microaggressions), but I always felt like the program was always making sure that the first priority was not making anyone uncomfortable. And while for me personally that was something I didn’t like, I think it was something that was very important. With some of the more contentious topics, measures like these would certainly be necessary for the program to run efficiently.

                My biggest complaint with the program was the lack of diversity. Everyone in our group had similar backgrounds and therefore it was rarely that we ever really disagreed on anything. Everything was from one, over-arching viewpoint. We talked about how microaggressions were harmful, especially to people of color and different ethnic groups, but no one in our group belonged to the groups we were talking about. We were approaching the subject from a dominant culture, and that really killed the immersion.

                But that issue is really only due to the subject matter I chose, and not because of any real fault with the program I think. Overall, I think the program was all about what you made of it, and how the people in your group steer the discussion. Increase the diversity and take a little more risks, and I think that would improve the program greatly.