Intersectionality, Social Context and the Co-Creation of Clinical Experience

Fourth Year Adult Psychoanalytic Training (APT)
2020-21, 3rd Trimester — Fridays, 3:30-5:00pm
Katherine Weissbourd, PhD
Kelly Lippman, LMHC

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Introduction

Intersectionality encompasses a number of dimensions including race, ethnicity, nationality, immigration status, gender and gender identity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic class, religion, ability, age and the way in which these aspects of the self are lived in a particular social context. In this six-session class, we have chosen to focus attention on current psychoanalytic ideas about race, ethnicity and the intersection of multiple aspects of identity in the United States. We are operating from the perspective that these dynamics are present in every clinical encounter, whether or not they are consciously experienced or addressed and whether or not the analyst and patient experience themselves as similar or different from one another (along multiple axes).

At the conclusion of this course, we hope that you will read and engage with theory, clinical material and our institute with a deeper understanding of racial trauma and a deeper curiosity about layers of identity – your own and those of your patients. We have chosen articles that we hope will spark discussion and engagement. We welcome you to talk with us about your experience in class as we proceed.

In a recent presentation to the New Center for Psychoanalysis, Anton Hart noted that the idea that individuals could eliminate “blind spots” is inconsistent with psychoanalysis. In his words, “we are all blind to aspects of ourselves and if we are able to become aware of our pervasive blindness and more receptive to the presence of our biases we will be better able to persist in deep and uncomfortable conversation and listen with less chance of inflicting our biases on others.” As instructors, our hope is to encourage self-reflection and genuine engagement. We also hope our discussions will allow us to be more conscious of how power arises and can be misused, whose experience tends to be centered, whose experience may be marginalized and how this affects how we relate as colleagues and with our patients.

Learning Objectives

At the end of this course, associates will:

1. Have engaged with current psychoanalytic ideas about the relationship between the intrapsychic and intersubjective within our social and historical context.
2. Understand more consciously the ways in which we defensively veer away from or foreclose interpersonal and clinical moments related to difference, power and social context, which will enhance treatment persistence and stimulate institutional change.
3. Have explored ideas about racial/ethnic identity, normative unconscious processes and their clinical applications, which will decrease misrecognition and deepen analytic process.
4. Have greater awareness of the intrasubjective and intersubjective dynamics related to racialized enactments and understand ways of responding clinically, which will increase clinical dexterity.
5. Have applied contemporary theory to the effects of chronic racial trauma, how white guilt is an aspect of racial trauma and the potential uses of depressive or reparative guilt in facing the reality of the harm of racial trauma.

March 19, 2021 — Intersubjectivity and Listening/Relating with “Radical Openness.”

[23 pages]

Both the podcast and reading for today’s class ask us to consider what occurs intrapsychically and what gets enacted relationally when ethnic/racial subjectivities come into contact. Hart asks us to think about how we listen and advocates an ethic of taking the other into one’s care. He notes that listening with “radical openness” involves relinquishing what we think we know and an openness to what we might not know or recognize about ourselves. His ideas about safety, risk and recognition will guide our opening discussion.

Griffin, Echegoyén and Hyman are reflecting on their time together in training. They note how the transitional space created by their multiracial cohort often involved disavowal or dissociation of aspects of their subjectivity that reminded them of their differences from one another. They comment that this was both adaptive and came with “significant losses.” How do Hart’s ideas relate to their experience? How might your cohort attend to dynamics in your transitional space in order to create a sense of mutual recognition and reduce the kind of disavowal and dissociation they write about? How do we avoid topics we perceive will make the group anxious? Our psychoanalytic elders anxious? How do we call people into a dialogue? How can there be a living/dynamic relationship with theory and practice rather than a sense of indoctrination?

Mind of State Podcast, October 28, 2020, “The Case for Radical Openness” with Anton Hart, PhD

(The link also includes a transcript of the podcast if you would prefer to read it rather than listen.)

Griffin, C., Echegoyén, R. & Hyman, J. (2020). The Secret Society: Perspectives from a Multiracial Cohort. Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 56(2-3), 282-304.