On a cold, rainy Saturday afternoon, in the Fort Greene office of The Brooklyn Social Therapy Group, I sat with Social Therapist Barbara Silverman and Ann Green pondering the question, "what is a community?" Is a community simply about geography, the block where you live? Is a community your collection of families and friends? Or maybe a community is about geography, family and friends and something more? The Brooklyn Social Therapy Group suggests that a community is about interaction. When people, bound by geographic interest, interact they create linkages. And it is these linkages that define a community. If interaction defines the community, then the family and friends that live in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill are not functioning as a community.

The Brooklyn Social Therapy Group performed a survey entitled, “does our community need therapy?” on the streets of Fort Greene and Clinton Hill this past summer.  Not surprisingly, the results highlighted issues relating to the area’s gentrification as the number one concern among "lifelong" residents and "new" residents. Most of the anger is due to misunderstanding by both sides.  Fort Greene and Clinton Hill is a grand "mosaic" of races, classes and sexualities that do not effectively interact. Interaction closes the understanding gap and forges a healthy community.

We can definitely improve the “health” of our community by starting an open dialogue in hopes of gaining a better understanding of our differences and similarities. I am not sure of the best way of kick starting this dialog, but I am confident that the Social Therapist at The Brooklyn Social Therapy Group can point us in the right direction.

The Brooklyn Social Therapy Group
The Brooklyn Social Therapy Group was founded by Dr. Fred Newman and has served Brooklyn for over 20 years. It was founded as a means of bringing people from all ethnicities, social class, sexual orientations, together in an interactive group in order to help them move outside of their comfort zone. They moved from Park Slope to their current Fort Greene location (104-106 S. Oxford Street) four years ago. “This new street-level space makes us a lot more accessible to the community,” said Ms. Silverman. They perform group and family therapy with a focus on the individual first, then creating a healthy family which eventually expands into the development of his or her community. They help people to see beyond their current life situation and realize new possibilities in their lives, family, job, community, etc. They are open to anyone within the community and fees are assessed from a scale base on each individual income.

Join the Social Therapy Group on Saturday, December 19, 2009 for their Holiday Party at 106 South Oxford from 4 – 7pm, and Benefit Concert at A.R.T. New York, 138 South Oxford Street from 6:15 – 7:30pm. Call 718.797.3220 to RSVP for the party and to purchase concert tickets.
 
My question for you, how can we start this dialogue?
 
By Michael Locke