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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April 23, 2021 — Persecutory and depressive guilt, splitting, breakdowns in thinking and the uses of ordinariness

[26 pages]

Caflisch uses contemporary Kleinian conceptualizations of guilt, and particularly persecutory guilt, to explore what gets in the way of white engagement with responsibility, concern and reparative action. She examines the ways in which white people’s self-idealization or romanticization of sorrow result in splitting and breakdowns in thinking. Depressive guilt, on the other hand, disturbs our sense of self, allows for what is disavowed to be integrated, softens defenses and allows for the possibility of repair.

Cyrus grounds the theoretical in the real by discussing Caflisch’s paper in the context of her lived experience and the severity of ongoing racial trauma in our society. By examining the real harm caused by the dynamics of white guilt and the trauma response in those harmed, she takes Caflisch’s ideas to the interpersonal realm. She calls into question Caflisch’s ideas about repair and presents instead the notion that harm reduction is the way to address the violence of whiteness and white guilt that harms both white people and people of color.

We are ending this class with a return to ideas about racial trauma, safety, harm reduction and the integration of disavowed self-states in the service of repair, recognition and true engagement. This often means letting go of mastery and knowledge as Hart referenced in our first class. Adrienne Harris’s struggle to relinquish her ownership of Haida art epitomizes this struggle. How can we apply these ideas clinically, in our understanding of racial trauma, in our engagement with psychoanalytic theory and in our relationships within the institute?

Caflisch, J. (2020). When reparation is felt to be impossible: Persecutory Guilt and Breakdowns in Thinking and Dialogue about Race. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 30(5), 578-594.

Cyrus, K. (2020). When reparation is impossible: A Discussion of “When Reparation is felt to be impossible: Persecutory Guilt and Breakdowns in Thinking and Dialogue about Race.” Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 30(5), 595-603.