Devaluation, Dehumanization, and the Erosion of Empathetic Connection in Hatred and Prejudice: Groups as Healers
Co-Chair: Steven Van Wagoner, PhD, CGP & Mary Chappell, PsyD, CGP
Date: March 21-22, 2025
Time: 8:30 AM - 4:30 PM on Friday, January 24th and 8:30 AM - 5:15 PM on Saturday, January 25th, 2025
Location: Friends Meeting House of Washington, 2111 Decatur Pl NW, Washington, DC 20008, In-Person Only
11.50 CEs
Program Description:
People of different minority identities come to our groups with myriad experiences of being hated, marginalized, devalued, and/or at times dehumanized by an oppressive and institutionalized white supremacy culture. How to overcome the influence of racism and white supremacy in our groups can be enormously challenging. This conference will examine how the erosion and failure of empathy embedded in white supremacy sustains and reinforces racism, hate and fear of the other, and deleteriously affects us all, but disproportionately those with minority identities. We will examine how group therapy can be an instrument of healing when empathy is established and/or restored between members of the group.
General Learning Objectives
1. Participants will identify the challenges facing group psychotherapists in overcoming the effects of racism and white supremacy culture in groups.
2. Participants will be able to describe how impaired empathy sustains racism and hate.
Specific Learning Objectives
1. Participants will be able to identify steps in the loss of the capacity for shame
2. Participants will be able to name two factors which indicate resistance to welcoming the other, on a personal or social level
3. Participants will be able to identify social or personal factors which suggest a loss of the capacity for shame.
4. Participants will be able to describe the impact of listening and letting go of pushing an agenda on groups having contentious dialogue.
5. Participants will be able to describe the basic learning goals of the large group experience run in the Reflective Citizens tradition.
6. Participants will be able to describe how social dreaming evokes the social unconscious and analyze its impact on communal dignity.
7. Participants will be able to list five current challenges that are emerging in psychotherapy groups related to polarization.
8. Participants will be able to apply elements of the Reflective Citizens methodology to interpersonal conflicts in psychotherapy groups.
9. Participants will analyze how unconscious codes of superiority undermine dignity of self and other.
10. Participants will be able to define empathy and discuss how to use it with minority identities.
11. Participants will be able to describe how objectification of the other obstructs empathic understanding.
12. Participants will learn to temporarily immerse themselves in the experience of the other as a way of restoring empathy.
