Race, Racism, and Emancipation

Can We See Ourselves As We Are?

On the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation in America, James Baldwin wrote a letter to his fifteen-year-old nephew, his namesake. Published in 1962 as “My Dungeon Shook,” his letter touched on family history and characteristics, and also spoke of the destructive and deadening effect of being born in a ghetto, “into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being.” He cautioned young James not to believe what white people said about him, and to know from whence he came so as not to limit where he could go.

Baldwin stated that the real crime of his countrymen was their innocence. He advised, “The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them. And I mean that very seriously. You must accept them with love. For these innocent people have no other hope. They are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it.” More than any other writer, Baldwin offered white people a view of themselves through the eyes of an African-American.

James Baldwin was an essayist, playwright and novelist who saw his mission as bearing “witness to the truth” about issues that are fundamental to the individual (and psychoanalysis), as well as to the structures and institutions that constitute our society. He wrote unflinchingly about life in Harlem, the racial situation in America, religion and spirituality, interracial relationships, sexuality, and humanity. He knew that his nephew’s identity was developing in the context of his family’s love and his country’s inhumanity.

The issues that Baldwin confronted remain as relevant today as they were 56 years ago when he wrote “My Dungeon Shook.” We have invited our panelists to respond to the ideas and challenges that Baldwin put forth in this short essay, and to add their own thoughts to begin our conversation on Race, Racism, and Emancipation in the current moment for the individual, for society, and for psychoanalysis.

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Speakers

Adrienne E. Harris, MD (Panelist) is a Faculty Member and Clinical Consultant of the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, a Faculty Member and Supervisor at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Norther California, and a Training Analyst in the IPA. She is co-chair of the Sandor Ferenczi Center at the New School in New York, the American Psychoanalytic Association’s Helen Meyers Visiting Scholar (on Women’s Issues) for 2018, the author of numerous psychoanalytic journal articles, and author or editor of many books, including Demons in the Consulting Room: Echoes of Genocide, Slavery and Extreme Trauma in Psychoanalytic Practice (co-edited with M. Kalb and S. Klebanoff, Routledge, 2016). She has a private practice in New York, NY.

Beverly J. Stoute, MD (Panelist) is a graduate of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute, a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Emory University Psychoanalytic Institute, and an Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine at Emory University School of Medicine. Dr. Stoute was the 2016-2017 recipient of a Diversity Grant from the American Psychoanalytic Association, and co-editor of the Special Topics Section of The American Psychoanalyst (March 2017), entitled Conversations on Psychoanalysis and Race. Dr. Stoute is currently working on a co-edited book with Michael Slevin entitled Race in the Therapeutic Encounter. She has a private practice in Atlanta, Georgia.

Forrest Hamer, PhD (Panelist) is a Faculty Member of the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis (SFCP), and is a Clinical Supervisor in the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Training Program and in the California College of the Arts Counseling Service. He is the author of three books of poetry, titled Call and Response (1995), Middle Ear (2000), and Rift (2007). At SFCP he taught about Race and Culture in a Psychoanalytic Context, and he is the author of several psychoanalytic journal articles focused on the arts, race, and listening. He has a private practice in Oakland, CA.

Bernard Edelstein, MD (Moderator) is a Training and Supervising Analyst, and Past President at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute; Assistant Professor Part Time, Harvard Medical School and has a private practice in Cambridge, MA.

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Learning Objectives
At the conclusion of this program, participants will be able to:

1. Address the role of “otherness” in transference and counter-transference between patients and therapists from different racial and class backgrounds.
2. Identify social conditions that cause practitioners to recoil from imagining the lives of patients from impoverished or violent backgrounds, and discuss ways to engage with the emotional consequences of societal realities.
3. Utilize counter-transference to identify the practitioner’s own prejudices.
4. Identify the role of prejudice in evaluating suitability for treatment in ways that are exclusionary or stereotyping, and compare with conscious attempts of the practitioner to engage with the patient’s social realities, bear painful affects, and remain sensitive to defenses in the service of the treatment.

References

Schedule
9:00am – 9:10am: Welcome and Announcements; 9:10am – 9:30am: Moderator’s Introduction and reading of My Dungeon Shook; 9:30am – 9:50am: Panelist #1 Presentation; 9:50am – 10:10am: Panelist #2 Presentation; 10:10am – 10:25am: Break; 10:25am – 10:45am: Panelist #3 Presentation; 10:45am – 12:00pm: Panelists Interactive Dialogue, and Discussion between Panelists and Audience.

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FEE: $55 Early Bird (use code: EB2018SKN); $65 Regular (after 04/14/2018)
The fee is waived for and Early Career Clinicians, Students, and BPSI Members, Trainees, and Associates. Scholarships available upon request.
Space is limited. Registration in advance is required. Questions?: 617-266-0953.

A Beholder’s Share: The Pleasures and Perils of Imagination

A secularly educated woman with no history of mental illness claims to have deeply meaningful experiences of “feeling God’s presence.” How might we understand her experience? Can we even describe it without foisting beliefs upon it?

In this talk, Dodi Goldman presents a sample of psychoanalytic work to ask: What happens when there are serious clashes of belief between patient and analyst? Exploring the pleasures and perils of imagination, he suggests that reality and imagination, though usually thought of as opposites, make necessary, if uneasy, bedfellows. Building on Winnicott’s view of psyche as “arising out of the imaginative elaboration of body functioning,” he wonders if our sense of reality might be evoked in the unpredictable space between imagination and adaptation. While fantasy creates versions of what is already known, imagination allows what seems familiar to be seen afresh.

Registration information will be forthcoming.

Speakers

Dodi Goldman, PhD (Presenter) is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the William Alanson White Institute and former Book Review Editor of Contemporary Psychoanalysis. He is the author of In Search of the Real: The Origins and Originality of D.W. Winnicott. His most recent collection of essays, A Beholder’s Share was published last year by Routledge. Dodi has a private practice in Manhattan and Great Neck, New York.

Karen Melikian, PhD (Moderator) is on the Faculty of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and the Armenian Psychological Association.  She is a supervising social worker at the McLean Hospital Children’s Programs and the 2017 recipient of the Arthur R. Kravitz Award for Community Action and Humanitarian Contributions.

Learning Objectives
At the conclusion of this program, participants will be able to:

1. Review the place of imagination in psychoanalytic theory.
2. Discuss the complex relationship between apperception, perception and imagination.
3. Explain the difference between fantasy and imagination.
4. Apply two approaches to dealing with clashes of belief between clinician and patient in psychoanalytic treatment.

References

Schedule
8:00pm-8:10pm: Welcome and Introductions; 8:10pm-9:00pm: Paper presentation by Dodi Goldman; 9:00pm – 9:30pm: Audience Q&A and Discussion moderated by Karen Melikian.