Othering Enactments in Psychoanalytic Organizations: Problems and Promises (Zoom Registration)
Although we might wish for them not to, racial enactments in psychoanalytic organizations can be observed to happen regularly, exposing schisms that are borne of personal, social, and structural elements. Now, in the wake of contemporary racial polarization and galvanizing instances of brutality, and in the ongoing context of widespread social division, upheaval, and international warfare, the psychoanalytic world is grappling with where we have been, where we are now, and where we are headed
Registration is required for this program. All registrants will receive a Zoom link.
Although we might wish for them not to, racial enactments in psychoanalytic organizations can be observed to happen regularly, exposing schisms that are borne of personal, social, and structural elements. Now, in the wake of contemporary racial polarization and galvanizing instances of brutality, and in the ongoing context of widespread social division, upheaval, and international warfare, the psychoanalytic world is grappling with where we have been, where we are now, and where we are headed.
This presentation offers a framework for understanding the problems and promises of enactments involving race, culture, and other forms of divisive difference, placing awareness of safety and the need for openness at its center. It can be perpetually difficult to engage in dialogue across the borders of entrenched difference, and not infrequently, as in the case of enactment experience, communication can seem to break down when polarization overwhelms dialogic co-commitment. Through the consideration of vignettes involving racial (and other diversity-related) enactments, the obstacles to participants’ capacity for humility and receptive, “radical” openness will be explored. Attention to matters of safety and unsafety, for all those involved, will be seen as an essential component in the creation of new dialogic possibility.
Suggested Readings
- The Holmes Commission on Racial Equality (2023). Chapter 7: Enactments. In Final Report of the Holmes Commission on Racial Equality in American Psychoanalysis.
- Hart, A. (2017). From Multicultural Competence to Radical Openness: A Psychoanalytic Engagement of Otherness. The American Psychoanalyst (Winter/Spring Special Section).
Speaker
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Anton Hart, PhD, FABP, FIPA, Presenter is a Training and Supervising Analyst and Faculty of the William Alanson White Institute. He is a member of the Editorial Boards of the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, Psychoanalytic Psychology and Contemporary Psychoanalysis. He has published articles and book chapters on a variety of subjects including psychoanalytic safety and mutuality, issues of racial, sexual and other diversities, and psychoanalytic pedagogy. He is a member of the group, Black Psychoanalysts Speak, and Co-produced and was featured in the documentary film of the same name. He teaches multiple training programs of the W. A. White Institute, at The Manhattan Institute, Mt. Sinai Hospital, the National Institute for the Psychotherapies' National Training Program, the Institute for Relational Psychoanalysis of Philadelphia, the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis, New York Presbyterian Columbia University Medical Center, and The New School for Social Research. He served as Co-Chair of the Holmes Commission on Racial Equality. He is completing a book for Routledge entitled, Beyond Oaths or Codes: Toward a Relational Psychoanalytic Ethics. He is in full-time private practice of psychoanalysis, individual and couple psychotherapy, psychotherapy supervision and consultation, and organizational consultation, in New York. He lectures and consults widely, in the United States and abroad. |
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Recording
Parts of this Zoom event may be recorded and may be used for educational purposes or made available for purchase.
Continuing Education will not be offered for this program.
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