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Blogging as a Method for Democratic Therapy

Betshy P. Sanchez Marrugo
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Blogs are a great way to express your voice. Even if your experiences have made you feel silent, oppressed, and unfairly treated at an intergroup relational context; you can still assert your thoughts, feelings and opinions in the online community. This way, blogging can be a method for cognitive-emotional democratic healing at both individual and collective levels.

Why is expressing your voice important?

Actions and reactions happen at inter and intra group levels for many reasons. Sometimes communicating our perspective helps elucidate a particular situation. So for instance, if you feel that some members of your social milieu have displayed hostility towards you as a result of the hostility that they themselves have been subjected to, you might be correct in assuming that such a hostility might have become hypernormalised at the group’s cultural level, and that such members are experiencing reactive-formative symptoms of trauma. For the minority individual, the experience of being let down, or rejected by a group, culture, system, or apparatus can be debilitating (i.e. it can feel like mob behaviour), and when this happens for a prolonged period of time; it can create feelings of marginalised frustration. Blogging is a good way to use your freedom of speech in a way that directly addresses the public audience, whilst simultaneously being an interpersonal method for expression.

The risk is to stay silent.

Setting up a blog

There are different ways in which you can begin your blog. The most common problem I hear when I speak with people about blogging is ‘I do not not what to say. I would not know where to start’. My answer is that such is precisely the way to start a blog. You do not need to know what to write about in order to express that you do not know what to write about. Sometimes it could be sharing your professional work. Other times it could just be about sharing an experience you went through. I tend to shift between these modes. Most of the time, I share some of my thoughts, feelings, and add something interesting that I have been researching about. Regardless of what your needs for expression are, blogging is an effective method for online communication and an interdisciplinary style for socialisation. But, what blog to use?

Choosing a blogging platform

Different people will prefer different types of blogs for their journalism depending on how much time or effort they wish to invest in the endeavour. Here are a few options:

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