Diversity Dialogue: An Innovative Model for Diversity Training

Abstract

Diversity Dialogue is a 3-h workshop designed and piloted by the Center for Diversity, Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital. Since 2010, Center members have conducted Diversity Dialogues with mental health clinicians, medical specialty professionals, psychiatry residents, and medical students. Our mission is to offer a professionally facilitated safe environment for sharing personal stories and experiences with the goal of enhancing relationships, tolerance and ability in a community. This chapter reviews historical developments of diversity initiatives in the corporate world as well as healthcare systems. It also examines societal processes that hinder the emergence of a genuine discourse about diversity. Concepts of the "other" and microaggressions that perpetuate power differentials and create structures of superiority-inferiority among groups of people are examined. The challenges of acknowledging one's biases and the fear of relinquishing them in favor of a more balanced and equal approach are also highlighted. Lastly, the restrictions that language imposes on us are offered with a conclusion that speaking about diversity and using the model of a dialogue is the most important and effective way to evoke meaningful change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved). (chapter)