Conceptualizing personality, culture, and context in psychoanalytic psychotherapy
Conceptualizing personality, culture, and context in psychoanalytic psychotherapy
Tuesday, February 4, 2025, at 8pm
Location:
Columbia University Faculty House,
64 Morningside Drive (enter via 116th St. click here for directions)
We strongly encourage participants to attend in person!
or via Zoom
Presenter: Usha Tummala-Narra, PhD
Discussant: Jose Sanchez-Cruz, MD
There is a common question that arises when considering the role of sociocultural context in theory and practice. Therapists ask whether the patient’s distress is rooted in the patient’s culture or in the patient’s personality. In other words, there has been a tendency to separate the psyche and the social, and tensions persist in theorizing about this issue. In this presentation, Dr. Tummala-Narra will explore how personality is shaped by sociocultural experience, family history and dynamics, and individual and collective trauma. She explores the role of discrimination and stereotyping in conceptualizations of healthy and pathological personalities and their role in clinical formulation. She will elaborate on the intersections of personality, culture, and context as they manifest in conscious and unconscious therapeutic dynamics.
PRESENTER
Usha Tummala-Narra, PhD, is a Professor of Counseling, Developmental, and Educational Psychology at Boston College. Her research and scholarship focus on immigration, trauma, and culturally informed psychoanalytic psychotherapy. She is also a clinical psychologist in Independent Practice and works primarily with survivors of trauma from diverse sociocultural backgrounds. Dr. Tummala-Narra is an Associate Editor of Psychoanalytic Dialogues and Consulting Editor for the American Psychologist. She is a member of the Holmes Commission on Racial Equality in American Psychoanalysis, initiated by the American Psychoanalytic Association. She is the author of Psychoanalytic Theory and Cultural Competence in Psychotherapy (2016), the editor of Trauma and Racial Minority Immigrants: Turmoil, Uncertainty, and Resistance (2021), and co-author of Applying Multiculturalism: An Ecological Approach to the Multicultural Guidelines (2023), all published by the American Psychological Association Books. Dr. Tummala-Narra is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including being listed among the top 2% of Highly Cited Scholars Worldwide (Stanford University Report).
DISCUSSANT
Jose Sanchez-Cruz, MD, was born in the Dominican Republic and moved to New Jersey later in childhood. He then served in the US Navy for 8 years. Following his service, he earned a B.S. from the University of California, San Diego in Microbiology with a minor in Film Studies. He earned his M.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles and was inducted into the Gold Humanism Honor Society. In 2023, Jose completed his residency training in Adult Psychiatry at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, where he served as Chief Resident. He completed the two-year Transference-Focused Psychotherapy training program at Columbia in 2024. He is a clinical faculty member at NYU, where he co-teaches a course for PGY2 residents on psychodynamic psychotherapy. He is currently a second-year candidate in the Adult Psychoanalysis program at Columbia. Jose is an inaugural Fellow of the Foundation for Community Psychoanalysis, which aims to provide psychoanalysis to marginalized populations. Jose is in private practice and provides psychoanalytically-informed psychiatric care and psychotherapy to diverse populations in New York and New Jersey.