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Intersectionality, Social Context and the Co-Creation of Clinical Experience
April 16, 2021 @ 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm, Wyman Classroom
Fourth Year Adult Psychoanalytic Training (APT)
2020-21, 3rd Trimester — Fridays, 3:30-5:00pm
Katherine Weissbourd, PhD
Kelly Lippman, LMHC
View Whole Syllabus
April 16, 2021 — Silence, racialized violence and the generational transmission of trauma
[29 pages]
Mid-term evaluations should be conducted in the closing minutes of your classes today. This is a discussion that should be allowed at least 10 minutes, but no more than 30 minutes. No written records are necessary.
Midterm Class Evaluation Discussion Questions
Powell writes about the connections between racialized trauma and silence and the implications of collective silence in the face of our uniquely American genocidal history. Her use of pictures in this article (the lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith in Marion, Indiana in 1930 and Michael Brown killed in the street in 2014) intentionally disrupt this collective silence. As she considers how to work clinically with racial dynamics and generational transmission of trauma, she notes both the difficulty and importance of holding in mind both the reality of social context and the psychic meaning to the patient.
The video, History and Memory (1991), brings to life intergenerational transmission of trauma by exploring what is recorded, what is left unrecorded and what is imagined in our collective memory. The filmmaker, Rea Tajiri, uses photos, movie and propaganda film clips, writing and family interviews to explore an aspect of her family’s history that has haunted her despite her family’s silence and efforts to forget.
Powell, D.R. (2018). Race, African Americans, and Psychoanalysis: Collective Silence in the Therapeutic Conversation. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 66(6):1021-1049.
Tajiri, R. (1991). History and Memory.
(The 32-minute Tajiri video is available with a public or university library card, please let instructors know if you have a barrier to accessing and we will help).