[Ec] update

[Christine Schmidt]

Hi EC,

Just as an update, I text'd Virginia and Susan about following up on
invitations to talk and had a conversation with Virginia for about a half
hour.

Although we tried to help each other understand the other's perspective -
and perhaps we filled in some information gaps - we concluded in
disagreement about Stavros' as the featured Fireside Chat author. Virginia
views this as giving him a platform to represent the organization; I view
it as offering a structured interview with an author whose work was
published by our journal. Virginia is offended by his behavior on
listservs. While I agree that he is argumentative, I keep pretty extensive
archives from the organizations where I hold membership and have hundreds
of postings that he wrote. They are strongly opinionated, political but not
inappropriately so. He and many of our colleagues commented extensively
after the 2023 elections on cause, result, accountability. At the end of
our conversation, Virginia said that she couldn't understand how I had been
such a strong supporter to help the training program develop an explicitly
anti-racist approach and now supporting the journal to present Stavros. She
sees this as a major contradiction; I see it as an expression of
inclusivity where we can be an organization that offers a tent over
differences in efforts to deepen our understanding of each other.

Kind regards,
Christine

Christine Schmidt, LCSW, CGP
Past President, Eastern Group Psychotherapy Society
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