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Process II and Ethics
February 10, 2023 @ 1:45 pm - 3:15 pm, Wyman Classroom
Second Year Adult Psychoanalytic Training (APT)
2022-23, 2nd Trimester — Fridays, 1:45-3:15pm
Diane Wolman, MSW
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February 10, 2023 — Differences Between Patient and Analyst
[39 pages]
As analysts, we have certain human characteristics in common with our patients, and we differ from each of them in that we are, in fact, separate people with unique life experiences. In this class we will explore the ways in which certain differences between analyst and analysand inform how transference/countertransference is enhanced or at times hindered. Dorothy Holmes is a renowned Black psychoanalyst and scholar who is the head of The Dorothy Holmes Commission on Racial Equality tasked with leading APsaA in addressing racism in the Association as well as in society. In this article (a plenary address at the 2016 APsaA winter meetings) she makes a case for addressing racism in analyses. The two case examples from her paper on multicultural competence (Jewish Patient, Jewish Therapist and White Patient, Black Therapist) have rich material on how cultural factors can impact a case. Aisha Abbasi is a Pakistani born Muslim woman who is a gifted and sensitive psychoanalyst and writer. Her book, The Rupture of Serenity, is well worth the investment. In the assigned chapter she eloquently describes how she navigates transference/countertransference with three patients for whom her ethnicity and religion in conjunction with political events become significant elements of the analytic field.
Holmes, D.E. (2016). Come Hither, American Psychoanalysis: Our Complex Multicultural America Needs What We Have to Offer. In Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 64(3), pp. 569-586
Holmes, D.E. (2013) Two Clinical Cases Illustrating Multicultural Techniques and Therapists’ Reflections from her paper, “Multicultural Competence: A Practitoner-Scholar’s Reflections on its Reality and its Stubborn and Longstanding Elusiveness.”
Abbasi, A. (2014). “The analyst’s infertility and subsequent pregnancy” in The Rupture of Serenity: External Intrusions and Psychoanalytic Technique, Karnac Press, pp2-22.
