The space between us: Healing in groups across difference

In this episode of Unraveling, Mary Wilson talks with psychotherapist and group facilitator Donna Harris, LCSW, CGP, about the challenging work of healing across lines of difference. Donna explains that real connection in group settings isn’t built by avoiding discomfort, but by risking it with care, curiosity, and accountability. She speaks to the importance of confronting bias, honoring impact over intent, and working through the mistrust that often exists in diverse spaces.

Donna highlights the power of affinity groups, spaces where people with shared identities can speak freely without navigating broader societal dynamics. She also pushes back on the idea that simply being surrounded by diversity equates to engaging with it, and critiques traditional therapy models for overlooking systemic forces like racism and sexism. For Donna, group work is a powerful, small-scale practice in collective healing, one that helps us truly see and connect across the lines that too often divide us.

Resources:

• Donna's private practice website, Intercultural Counseling
• The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, a national, multiracial, anti-racist collective of organizers and educators, is dedicated to building a movement for social transformation.
• Stir Fry Seminars, cross-cultural and communications training programs for managers, supervisors, H.R., admin executives, education professionals, social services leaders and agencies.  

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