NCSPP is aware that historically psychoanalysis has either excluded or pathologized groups outside of the dominant population in terms of age, race, ethnicity, nationality, language, gender, religion, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, disability, and size. As an organization, we are committed to bringing awareness to matters of anti-oppression, inequity, inequality, diversity, and inclusion as they pertain to our educational offerings, our theoretical orientation, our community, and the broader world we all inhabit.

Presenters' Responses:

Forrest Hamer
The course is conceived with an eye toward applying intrapsychic and social-psychic theories to the reparation of interpersonal and collective injustices.  Course participants will be invited to consider such issues as they apply particularly to racial and other inequities, and the readings include perspectives from thinkers representing various social and theoretical positions.

Vivian Dent  
As social justice movements increasingly recognize, personal and collective trauma lie at the heart of a great deal of privilege, oppression, exploitation, and injustice, all of which inflict additional trauma, particularly on historically marginalized groups. This course will explore trauma on many levels: somatic, dynamic, relational, collective, transgenerational, and historical. It will consider how historical and collective trauma can manifest in individual psychodynamics, as well as how the denial and projection of trauma, by victims and by perpetrators, compounds traumatic suffering over time. 

Paula Mandel
Psychoanalytic theories are all written from within a particular social and historical context. Beyond that, they are simply sets of ideas, deriving any transitory truth value from their clinical usefulness. Unfortunately, these ideas have typically been taken as truths and their cultural contexts ignored. This tendency is particularly damaging to non-dominant groups, but it hinders all of us in our ability to think flexibly and creatively in our work. I believe it is important to critique all accepted notions in our field and particularly to notice where they are laden with implicit biases that further marginalize the experience of non-dominant groups. I welcome participants doing so in my classes. I look forward to us all being fully conscious, discerning readers and to discussing when and where damaging biases emerge.

Maria Pilar Bratko
Implicit in my approach to teaching is my diverse social location. My identity comprises an experiential understanding of the immigrant experience, bilingualism, biculturalism, and biracial identity formation. I have also crossed economic class lines and expanded my sexual orientation. As such, when these aspects of identity enter the discourse, I will address the systems that oppress individuals based on any of these aspects. 

That said, I hold accountability for my limitations related to the marginalized experience as it relates to (dis)ablism, body size, gender expression and sexual identity. If and when these aspects of the marginalized identity arise, I will hold and protect space for addressing these areas to the best of my knowledge.