Diversity in AGPA
Donald Wexler, MD

As a fitting conclusion to AGPA’s Annual Meeting entitled “Diversity Matters,” Evangelina Holvino, EdD, and James Cummings, EdD, led a workshop on “Diversity in AGPA.” About 40 attendees, including a past and the current President of AGPA, and board, committee, and faculty members, participated in a process intended to give some order to diversifying our membership and making it more inclusive.

We identified the steps necessary toward reaching the following goals:

  1. Define and discuss key aspects of diversity in AGPA.
  2. Assess the forces supporting and hindering diversity in AGPA.
  3. Articulate strategic diversity directions or tasks for AGPA.
  4. Identify leadership for implementing key diversity tasks and action steps.

To begin to define and reach these goals, Evangelina asked each person to identify themselves in two ways—by the number of years each of us had attended the Annual Meeting and by the role each of us played in the national Meeting. The average number of years attended was 10; there were relatively few newer members in attendance.

Evangelina then suggested three ways of regarding diversity: talking about the differences between people in terms of age, gender, class, culture, activity, etc.; managing differences so advantages are maximized and difficulties minimized; and working with diversity, i.e., constantly seeking to have chemistry in the fabric of the organization.

It was clear that the AGPA definition of diversity must come from the membership itself. The session’s leaders encouraged us to understand rather than argue. Diversity means difference and inclusion; the two must exist together. The ensuing discussion produced the following questions:

  • What do we mean by diversity in AGPA?
  • What are the differences between inclusion and assimilation?
  • Is diversity really important now and why?
  • How does inclusion affect the membership and AGPA?
  • What’s been done with diversity in AGPA? What worked and what hasn’t?
  • What forces support diversity in AGPA, and what’s holding us back?
  • What would AGPA look like if it was really diverse?

After this list was presented, the audience was divided into small groups to discuss these questions and to make brief reports with recommendations.

Concerns about the structure of AGPA and the Annual Meeting were voiced. The membership was defined as middle class, middle aged, and probably not interested in diversity, no matter how it might be defined. The question of whether AGPA should include those who do group work, as well as those who do group therapy, was raised. Participants wondered what the threat to us is if we do change? Loss of integrity? Loss of standards?

It was suggested that strenuous efforts be made to seek out young professionals doing group therapy in the area where the Annual Meeting will be held each year. Scholarships and other financial assistance to lower the cost of attendance should be adopted. Many participants emphasized the importance of mentoring as a way of attracting and retaining the younger members in AGPA. 

By the end of the session, we had created an impressive list of issues, queries, challenges, doubts, and hopes and left the meeting with a desire to work towards the goals as defined by our leaders.

This article was published in the August/September 2001 issue of The Group Circle.