International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies最新文献

This paper is a multifaceted exploration of white subjectivity and the social phenomena of whiteness, about which there is a considerable body of psychoanalytic literature spanning decades. Hazel White's “unwound sonnet late on the tide” explores themes of traumatic legacies, family, shame, and mourning. Critical poetic inquiry is used to consider these themes and make links between the poetics of psychoanalytic processes and the psychoanalysis of poetics.

This paper is an exploration of possible journeys towards freedom from colonial states of mind. These inner worlds are the distorting forms of self-observation brought about by living under oppressive conditions, and includes those associated with colonialism itself, and also coloniality, the enduring legacy left behind by colonial regimes. Fanon describes the effect of colonialism on subjectivity as creating “a zone of nonbeing” and suggests freedom from it requires internally “an authentic upheaval.” This paper draws the parallels between Fanon's zone of nonbeing and states of mind untethered from the shackles of colonial definition. These states, akin to reverie are potentially the place from which the quest for a new authenticity of being might be found.

The psychological case for reparations offers a framework for understanding the emotional complexity inherent in the centuries-long resistance to granting reparations to African Americans for its three hundred years of chattel slavery and its legacies—Jim Crow, redlining, mass incarceration, extrajudicial killings, and voter suppression. A central component of the resistance is moral injury, which Bryan Nichols and I maintain is the primary reason why the concept of reparations is so emotionally charged. The disavowal of the collective trauma for both the formerly enslaved and former slave owners creates moral wounds which show up as metaphorical ghosts that haunt US culture. Behavioral scientists who understand the complexity of both individual and large group dynamics are called upon to acknowledge and repair the intergenerational moral wounds of chattel slavery and assume leadership in the reparative process—to “transform ghosts into ancestors.”

This article reviews the results of a qualitative study of Black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC)'s experiences of discrimination in psychoanalytic professional organizations (PPOs) in the USA. The authors used thematic analysis to analyze the transcripts of semi-structured interviews with n = 10 self-identified BIPOC with prior experience in PPOs, including psychoanalytically-oriented graduate programs, psychoanalytic institutes and other training programs, and professional membership organizations across the United States. A key finding is that a significant majority of interviewees (n = 9) reported experiencing discrimination in these organizations, per their own definitions of the term “discrimination,” and described these experiences in considerable detail. The authors attempt to triangulate the findings of the present study in relation to the findings of the Holmes Commission and other existing literature on BIPOC experiences in psychoanalysis.

Group hate, a phenomenon increasingly prevalent in recent world history, manifests in ethnic hatred, mass killings, terrorism, and war. In this context, psychoanalysis offers a unique perspective, modestly contributing to the understanding of group hate through the analysis of human aggression and defenses against such aggression. Human beings, while requiring a group life to maintain basic security, often fear being immersed and judged by other individuals in the group. This paper delves into three mechanisms, interpellation, group polarization, and projective identification, that individuals employ to defend against such fears. Interpellation, for instance, sheds light on how cultural forces, referred to as ideology, influence personal identity. The latter two mechanisms, group polarization, and projective identification, foster in-group solidarity and hatred of the out-group, thereby perpetuating widening splits and cycles of hatred and vengeance between groups. The paper concludes by advocating for the humanization of the hated others, setting aside fantasies of vengeance, and finding areas of compromise as the way forward. A secondary goal of the paper is to address the split within psychoanalysis between intrapsychic and interpersonal concepts.

Drawing a connection between the “repetition compulsion” and reparations movements' demand for a “guarantee of non-repeat,” this essay examines some of the psychological workings of implication in systemic racism by highlighting individual, familial, and collective histories, and by looking at some of what is currently taking place in psychoanalytic institutions.

U.S. citizens are debating whether slavery and white supremacy are core constituents of the United States, whether white children should be troubled by learning the brutalities of slavery and life under Jim Crow laws, and whether racial reparations are due to African Americans for the centuries of economic, political, and social oppression they have endured. While many white folks prefer to ignore or demean calls for reparations, others have turned to reparative genealogy. They are inquiring deeply into their ancestors' relationships to chattel slavery and white supremacy, committed to reckoning with their own and their ancestors' racial debts. They seek to develop what sociologist W. E. Du Bois called “double consciousness.” In order to protect themselves, African Americans had to try and see through the eyes of white people, as well as their own. But white folks too rarely attempt to see themselves through the eyes of Black people. During slavery, how were whites seen by Blacks? Philosopher George Yancy urges white people to engage in the work of developing double consciousness so they can see, as most people of color do, the pernicious white and class advantages that haunt us. My ancestors were enslavers in North Carolina. I turned to slave narratives from Black North Carolinians to distill what they observed about white people. Their descriptions point to individual and cultural pathologies: dehumanizing, pathological narcissism, authoritarian character, greed, cruelty, sadism, the policing of racial borders, paranoia, absence of deserved shame and moral injury. These understandings underline some of the psychosocial tasks before us as white people.

Puerto Rico is one of the world's oldest colonies, with thousands of its people dislocated to the United States (U.S.) mainland in the wake of Hurricane Maria and the ongoing economic crisis. However, since the 2019 protests ousting then governor Rosello, Puerto Ricans across the Diaspora are imagining new emancipatory realities, including the possibility of independence. This paper draws on data from the Colonial Mentality Study in New York City (CMS-NYC, N = 19) to explore how Puerto Ricans in the Diaspora narrativize new political possibilities despite the challenges posed by post-disaster migration and racial and economic inequality. Using a decolonial psychoanalytic approach, we show how two colonial logics—moving “up and out” of Puerto Rico and “up and in” American capitalism—are textured by discourses of racial inferiority and upward mobility, and illustrate how these are experienced by Puerto Ricans who identify as Multiracial (Multiracial-Identified Puerto Rican, N = 11), and Puerto Ricans who identify as Black (BIPR, N = 8). Reading our findings in the sociogenic context of race, class, and colonialism in Puerto Rico, and race and class among Puerto Ricans in NYC, we explore how racism toward Puerto Ricans and racism among Puerto Ricans intersect with notions of upward mobility, revealing how anti-Blackness supports economic inequality in the U.S. mainland alongside with Puerto Rico's colonial situation. Complementing decolonial psychoanalytic theory with the Afro-Puerto Rican radical tradition, we outline the implications of this research for future scholarship, clinical practice, and political action.

A description of partnership between a school of psychology and a human rights organization that offers asylum services is used as a basis for probing the ethical complexity of activism. “Doing good” is complicated by the insertion of asylum evaluation services into the reductionist and metrics-based evaluative mechanisms utilized in conventional psychological services and demanded by U.S. and European immigration proceedings. Conceptualization of migration through the lenses of decoloniality, necropolitics, and critical refugee studies lays bare the extraordinary complexity of the journey of involuntary migrants. Some consequences of the imperative to reduce such complex suffering to simple psychometric parameters and medicalized diagnoses are explored, and the paper ends with a plea for a situated, culturally sensitive, and clinically complex understanding of the human suffering entailed by involuntary migration. Activism, it is suggested, is best practiced within complex ethical frameworks that ensure that, at a minimum, we do no harm to those we seek to serve.