Resources


In mainstream psychoanalytic education, training, and theory development, topics of race, racism, and other diversities have often been marginalized. In the film Black Psychoanalysts Speak (Winograd, 2014), several psychoanalysts articulate how “thoroughly blocked” white analysts can be when it comes to the issue of race and the ways that repression around racism can render even seasoned analysts mute.

As an institution, the PCC community is in a stage of infancy in generating productive understanding and dialogue around topics of racism, cultural diversities, gender diversities, socioeconomic status, able-ism, age-ism, and differences of all kinds. We stand on the shoulders of the psychoanalysts who have invited the larger analytic community to engage in these topics in our clinical work, our teaching, and most importantly, within ourselves. All in an effort to have a greater depth of understanding of all forces, internal and external, that impact the psyche.

The PCC Anti-Racism Task Force will update links to organizations within and outside of the psychoanalytic community whose work may inform and strengthen our own. The links below lead to the Diversities Section of the Department of Psychoanalytic Education within the American Psychoanalytic Association. We encourage all members, faculty, and visitors to the website to utilize these reading lists to explore the rich literature on topics including race, ethnicity, religious belief, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, physical ability, socioeconomic status, and political affinity. 

APsaA
Holmes Commission:
Holmes Commission Racial Equality Established

For the APsaA Department of Psychoanalytic Education Diversities Section you will need to follow this link, DPE diversities section, and click on the "database" link.

In this section you may also access current and past syllabi for two PCC study groups focusing on race and other diversities (Psychoanalysis on the Margins and Race & Psychoanalysis).

  1. Syllabus Race and Psychoanalysis Study Group
  2. Study Group Syllabus, Psychoanalysis at the Margins
  3. Study Group Syllabus Y2, Psychoanalysis at the Margins - Year 2
  4. Study Group Syllabus Y3 Psychoanalysis on the Margins - Year 3 Intersectionality

PCC Study Group Syllabi:
Please contact Terri Onstad, LCSW or Elissa Murphy, PhD if you would like to be part of one of these study groups, or if you’d like support in starting another study group on topics of diversities.

Teaching Resources
PDF for Facilitating Difficult Race Discussions

Cultural Humility and Racial Literary
Racial Literacy Groups

Social Justice Efforts and Organizing
Organizing Against Racism

Blogs/Podcasts and Organizing
"On Caring"

Hardy, Ken - Listening to the Untold Stories

Mind Of State

Couched

Interview with Jack Drescher, MD "Psychotherapeutic Engagements With LGBTQ+ Patients and Their Families"

Interview with Jonathan Sklar, "Dark Times: Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Politics, History and Mourning"

References:
Winograd, B. (2014). Black Psychoanalysts Speak. PEP Video Grants, 1(1).

Immediately after the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, several PCC members initiated a discussion on the PCC listserv concerning the decision and our need to enter into the conversation. PCC President Dr. Harold Kudler contacted APsaA leadership for guidance on the issue and to share our discussion. APsaA leaders were impressed with the ideas generated from our members and appointed a national team, drawn from its Social Issues Department, to develop those ideas into APsaA’s official statement, as follows:

The American Psychoanalytic Association opposes sanctions that deprive a person of control over their own bodies. In overturning Roe v. Wade, the United States Supreme Court seriously interferes with the right of American citizens to this control.

Like other citizens, our organization’s members hold a range of individual opinions about abortion. However, as psychoanalysts, we strive to approach the conflict arising from differing opinions with a spirit of curiosity and without prejudice to any sides other than that of human dignity and healthy psychological development.

Research and clinical experience demonstrate that personal autonomy is an essential attainment of human development. Autonomy is the ability of individuals to make decisions about their own lives free of coercion or interference. Autonomy begins with the child toddling away from caregivers and culminates in the confidence to rely on one’s own abilities throughout life. Failure to achieve autonomy results in crippling self-doubt and shame. Legal sanctions which deprive people of control over their bodies and choices undermine autonomy and cause profound problems in life and health in much the same way as do war, disaster, and disease.

In conclusion, the American Psychoanalytic Association supports the right of people to make decisions regarding their own bodies and opposes the ruling of the United States Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. Interfering with the right to autonomy will have devastating effects on all human beings -- effects which will ripple out to undermine the lives of families, communities, the nation, and the world.

APsaA is the oldest and largest professional organization for psychoanalysts in North America, representing 3,000 members, 34 approved training institutes, and 39 affiliate societies throughout the United States. For more than 100 years, the association has issued position statements on vital social issues. Visit https://apsa.org/position-statements. https://apsa.org/position-statements

The role of the Colleague Assistance Committee (CAC) is to offer assistance to impaired clinical members of the PCC, including Training and Supervising Psychoanalysts. The CAC has multiple roles:

  1. To assist clinical members when colleagues, students, supervisees, family members and patients have concerns regarding the professional functioning of a clinical member. The confidentiality of all parties is our standard.
  2. To assist a clinical member when they have concerns about their own functioning or to help them or their family manage their practice when an acute illness or death occurs.
  3. To encourage and assist members in developing a Professional Will to aid when acute illness or death occurs.
  4. To encourage clinical members to have a local or non-local colleague to monitor their professional ability.
  5. CAC members to contact include:

 

For a comprehensive bibliography of research studies on the efficacy of psychoanalytic therapies, visit the American Psychoanalytic Association.

Psychoanalysis in North Carolina: A Brief History 1910 to 2015, written by David F. Freeman, MD, and edited by Paul M. Brinich, PhD., 2017