Clinical Technique for Non-White Psychoanalysts Working with Racially-Charged Transferences in Cross Racial Dyads
Course Offering May 2021 with Aisha Abbasi, Kathleen Pogue White, Sandra Park and M. Fakhry Davids
Non-white psychoanalysts in Western societies confront a complicated clinical situation when racially-charged transferences emerge in the treatment, particularly (but not exclusively) with white patients. It may be intolerable for the patient to consider that his or her mind may contain any form of racial prejudice; shame-inducing conscious prejudice may be kept under tight secrecy. At the same time, the non-white analyst, over a lifetime of exposure to racist projections, may have a counter-transferential array of reactions, defenses and adaptations to conscious and unconscious racially-charged material within the analysis. With a limited number of non-white training and supervising analysts in the psychoanalytic community, the non-white analyst may not have had sufficient opportunities to explore, and learn to clinically work with, these responses within themselves and their patients.
This course is designed to help fill the gap by addressing the following topics:
- guilt/anxiety about “white fragility” when examining racist material within an analysis
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anxiety about whether exploration of racist material is appropriate to or “objective” within an analysis
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technical questions about managing defenses against awareness of racially-based transferences
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managing countertransferential feelings such anger, shame, alienation and envy, among others
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concern about the impact of one’s own internalized and internal racism
Four experienced supervising analysts present their own clinical material to illustrate what they have learned about working with racially-charged transferences and countertransferences.
Course design: A small group of (10-15) participants will be selected to attend four two-hour segments, each with a different supervising analyst. The course faculty will present process material from 1-2 sessions of a treatment, followed by a discussion focused on clinical technique and participants’ lived experience of conducting cross-racial analyses.
Course times and dates: 10:00 am – 12:00 pm EST, on May 1, 8, 15 and 22
May 1 • Aisha Abassi, MD, Executive Director, The Mel Bornstein Clinic for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy; Chair, Holtzman Scholarship Committee; Training and Supervising Analyst, Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute
May 8 • Kathleen Pogue White, PhD, psychoanalyst and organizational consultant; faculty, William Alanson White Institute; Tavistock Institute member; Black Psychoanalysts Speak co-chair and founding member
May 15 • Sandra Park, MD, faculty, New York Presbyterian Hospital, Weill Cornell Medical Center; Training and Supervising Analyst, Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Treatment and Research
May 22 • M. Fakhry Davids, M.Sc., TQAP, Supervising and Training Analyst of the British Psychoanalytic Society; Founding Board Member of Partners in Confronting Collective Atrocities; Fellow of the Institute of Psychoanalysis; Tavistock Society of Psychotherapists member
Course Fee: $325 for non-APM members, free for members
Application Process: Interested non-white clinicians (for whom the course is designed) should submit a 1 to 3 sentence statement about how this course will benefit their clinical work. Priority will be given to members of the Association for Psychoanalytic Medicine. However, any member of APsaA may apply. Please email your statement to Mona Jain at md@monajain.com. These will be reviewed by the course chairs and will remain confidential.
Questions? Please contact course chairs Sargam Mona Jain, MD and Hillery Bosworth, MD at md@monajain.com or hillerybosworthmd@gmail.com