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As a psychology intern during my graduate studies, I was consulting with a community group that wanted to set up a thrift store in the semi-urban community. I was helping out one fellow, a non-specialized factory worker named Jacques, to facilitate a meeting. Among other things, I coached him the truth about group processes that I learnt at University, to temper the different styles in group setting. One of the things I told him was that sometimes, as a facilitator, you have to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to express his/her view on the subject. Sometimes, some people take the floor more often than other and it is OK, to refrain, their participation with an utterance such as: “We heard many different point of view on the subject, I would like to hear the people who have not expressed their view, yet…» I could assure him that there was only one way to control the nature of things. At the meeting, Jacques was facilitating the discussions; one of the participants was more talkative compare to the others, and Jacques, in the spirit of what I coached him to say to restrain participation said to this fellow “ Please, shut up, I want to hear the ones who did not say anything yet”. the group bust into laugh and the meeting went on. I was in shock; it worked despite what I learnt at School about the universal language of group processes. This anecdote is the fertile compost in which constructionist perspective grows. It falls out from this perspective that there is only one Truth, that we can control the nature of things, and that language is the best bay to depict this independent world: three sacred cows challenged by the constructionists.
Approximate Word count = 1074
Approximate Pages = 4.3
(250 words per page double spaced)
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