WHITE LIES:
Four Voices Working Across the Impossibility (and Possibilities) to Speak of Race and Immigration within Psychoanalysis
Furthering the discourse begun in Sue Saperstein’s 2016 NCSPP Course “Difference Matters!,” four individual clinicians commit to speak to the inclusion and clash of radical differences. This dialogue, facilitated by four racially and culturally dissimilar voices, will bring forward the theoretical, historical, and philosophical disparities in our current climate. Our practice of speech is intended to open a necessary, ethical discourse so as to keep learning from the Other and our Otherness.
The framework for this workgroup will include discussion of culturally relevant readings from psychoanalysis, journalism, and literature as a way to speak of the underrepresented/unseen, and the challenges of psychic citizenship in its relation to power. We will work and move together to find an analytic position that addresses the painful gaps between psychoanalysis and lived experience, as they surface in the clinic and the classroom.
Participants will be able to:
- Describe the value that psychoanalysis brings into the racial discourse.
- Identify the psychic impact of race and migration in the clinic and classroom.
- Describe the construction of identity in its relation to power.
- Identify the concept of racial melancholia as an outgrowth of sociocultural influences (oppression, exclusion and alienation), rather than individual pathology.
- Demonstrate the possibility to speak, listen and translate across cultural and racial differences.
- Identify how the impossibilities of speaking about race mirrors the unspeakability and unthinkability of trauma.
- Describe how the impossibilities of speaking about race and trauma impacts transference and countertransference enactments in the therapeutic dyad.
Divino, C. L. & Moore, M. S. (2010). Integrating neurobiological findings into psychodynamic therapy training and practice. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 20, 337-355.
Stephanie Z. Chen, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and faculty at the Wright Institute. As a bicultural psychologist, she addresses race, gender, immigration, acculturation, and the tension of navigating between conflicting worlds. Her interests include ethnic/cultural identity formation and the integration of relational psychodynamic theories with a multicultural, social justice lens.
Jimena Martí-Haik, M.A., is a psychoanalyst from Mexico City. She majored in Latin American Literature and Literary Criticism and has a Master’s degree in Psychoanalytic Theory. A trained analyst, she has a private practice and has worked in psychiatric institutions. Her interest is the intersection of cultural productions, social discourses, and subjectivity.
Sue Saperstein, MFT, Psy.D., has been a psychoanalyst, educator, and community activist for 45 years in San Francisco. She is faculty and supervisor at SFCP, NCSPP, CPMC, and CAPA and has focused on the evolving psychoanalytic treatment of trauma, sexualities, culture, immigration, and now elder development. In 2006, she published “Psychoanalytic Justice: An Ethical Inquiry“ in The Psychoanalytic Review.
Nikkia Young, Ph.D., is a psychologist and former classroom teacher and instructor at CSPP. Her areas of clinical focus include trauma, parenting, adolescence, and early childhood. In addition to running the Counseling Department at Lick-Wilmerding High School in San Francisco, Dr. Young provides trainings and consultation on equity, literacy, classroom management, and mental health.
This course is for clinicians of all levels who are interested in thinking psychoanalytically about issues related to race and immigration.
Enrollees who cancel at least SEVEN DAYS prior to the event date will receive a refund minus a $35 administrative charge. No refunds will be allowed after this time. Transfer of registrations are not allowed.
For program related questions contact Morgan Lloyd, LCSW at morganlloyd.lcsw@gmail.com or 510-852-9013.
For questions related to enrollment, locations, CE credit, special needs, course availability and other administrative issues contact Michele McGuinness by email or 415-496-9949.
Education Committee
The Education Committee is responsible for the development of a variety of courses and workshops given throughout the year in San Francisco and the East Bay.