ISSUES OF ‘RACE’ IN PSYCHOANALYTIC PSYCHOTHERAPY: WHOSE PROBLEM IS IT ANYWAY?

ISSUES OF ‘RACE’ IN PSYCHOANALYTIC PSYCHOTHERAPY:WHOSE PROBLEM IS IT ANYWAY?1

Helen Morgan

abstract The author argues in this paper that, because of racism, there is anasymmetrical power relationship between black and white which saturates all aspectsof society. Whilst this dynamic also permeates psychoanalytic training organizationsthe problem is frequently ignored or denied. This colour-blind position fails to see oracknowledge difference and hence the white individual is able to avoid the shameinvolved in owning any racist thought. For the black trainee an important aspect oftheir identity and experience is not allowed expression, making the training experi-ence a difficult one. However, the paper argues that the inability to acknowledge andthink about racism has implications, not only for potential black applicants andpatients, but also for the professional organizations and their predominantly whitemembers as this cordial form of racism prevents thought and does damage to bothwhite and black.

Key words: race, racism, black, white, colour-blindness, psychotherapy, psycho-analysis, supervision, training.

Introduction

From time to time it will be publicly noticed how few black people enter theprofession of psychoanalytic psychotherapy relative to the complex culturalmix of twenty-first century Britain. In this paper I consider whether this factmatters and, if so, to whom? When discussions arise about the lack of blackpeople entering training, the problem and therefore the solution tend to besought in the potential black applicant. Thought is given to the high cost ofan analytic training or to questions as to whether analytic thinking is anti-thetical to a different cultural perspective. These may be valid points forconsideration, but the danger is they allow members of this predominately

1. The evidence that has emerged from recent developments in the analysis of DNAconfirms that the concept of ‘race’ is a constructed one with no objective basis inbiology. This concept as well as the use of concepts such as ‘black’ and ‘white’ wasimposed by the colonial powers and is a relatively recent idea. It is, as Rustin puts it,‘. . . . both an empty category and one of the most powerful forms of social categor-ization’ (Rustin 1991, p. 57). To acknowledge the emptiness of the category I shallrefer to ‘race’ in apostrophes throughout this paper.

helen morgan is a senior member of the British Association of Psychotherapistswhere she is a training analyst and supervisor for the Jungian Analytic section. Shehas been part of the group leading on considerations of ‘Race and Equity’ in the BAPwith special focus on research, theoretical and clinical explorations and consider-ation of the implications for training. Address for correspondence: 35 Bertie Road,London NW10 2LJ. [email: [email protected]]

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© The authorJournal compilation © 2008 BAP and Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road,

Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

mailto:[email protected]

white profession to avoid not only our responsibility for this state of affairs,but also what insights might be lost.

Whilst all sorts of differential power relationships prevail within anysociety which will inevitably reverberate throughout any of its institutions, Iam focusing only on the matter of colour racism here. This is because of thecurious fact that this difference is by definition so visible and yet we seem tobe so blind to it. What might be thought of as a rather noisy problem has aparticular sort of silence within so that we in psychoanalytic institutionsseem unable to talk to ourselves about it.After all, we are rarely reluctant totalk and think about other matters that seem to be unspeakable, and weassume that harm is being done, not only to the part that is not being spokenabout or to, but also to the one who is silent. My raising the question of whatis it that we as white psychotherapists lose when we fail to talk about thismatter is not merely a concern for a lack of richness in the cultural make-upof our institutions, but something more subtle, more damaging, a real emo-tional and intellectual impoverishment of the ‘white’ psyche.

Is There a Problem?

For her dissertation for the MSc which is run jointly by the BAP andBirkbeck, Margaret James-Franklin (2004) interviewed black psychoanalyticpsychotherapists who had trained in a number of different organizationsabout their experiences in training. The difficulties they reported painted apicture of the black individual accepted into the training as long as they putaside and ignore their ‘blackness’. The pressures were subtle but wearing.Some felt that their ethnicity attracted negative special attention during theinterview process, citing instances of being quizzed on matters the equiva-lent of which were not put to white applicants. Some reported raising pointsin seminars about theoretical and clinical material from the point of view ofdiversity, racial difference, cultural variation, racism etc. which were ignoredor dismissed by teachers and peers who were clearly uncomfortable inspeaking freely about such matters. Generally the climate was one of colour-blindness where trainers, supervisors and analysts took the position thatdifferences in colour are not relevant as we are all the same. This meant afailure to acknowledge any matter of difference and required the blacktrainee to ignore important aspects of her or his experience.

In his work on ‘Racism as a borderline issue’, Frank Lowe writes:

I haven’t met a black therapist or trainee therapist who has been satisfied withtheir training organization’s handling of race issues or feels confident that theprofession is addressing the problem. I have explored how colour-blindness orrace avoidance can occur as a defence against fear and helplessness and Ibelieve it also operates at an institutional level as a mechanism to maintainpower, i.e. the status quo with its traditional power relations, authority andcontrol. (Lowe 2006, p. 56)

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Farhad Dalal describes his experience as a black therapist in supervision:

I was speaking about the theme of colour when my clinical supervisor (white)said that he was not usually aware of the person’s ‘race’ or colour in a session;it was not a significant issue for him. This surprised me as I am often consciousin groups, and in one to one situations, of my colour in relation to others. (Dalal2002, p. 219)

By stating that he was not usually aware of a person’s ‘race’, Dalal’s super-visor was implying that there was nothing significant of which to be aware.By raising the issue Dalal could be seen as presenting indications of aninternal problem and the intimations of a paranoid state. Given the anxietyfor any trainee under continuous assessment, this semi-conscious implica-tion by the white supervisor of internal difficulties in the black trainee mustbe hard to manage.

Dalal offers an alternative understanding of this difference in perspective:

The white, by virtue of their colour, is in the mainstream and near the centre,whilst the black is marginalized and nearer the edge. The closer one is to theedge, with the resultant danger of going over, the more one is aware of thecircumstances that put one there – colour. Meanwhile, those at the centre havea vested interest (often unconscious) in maintaining the status quo by blankingout the colour dynamic altogether: if it does not exist in the first place then itcannot be changed. Thus, the difference between the feelings elicited in me andmy supervisor are not just because of our asocial histories, but to do with wherewe are located in the field of power relations. (Dalal 2002, p. 219)

Elsewhere Dalal refers to this image of the centre and the edges.What thosewho are marginalized, he says:

. . . . . . are forced to do as a strategic necessity, is to . . . assert a new essentialismat the margins – the point about being at the margins is that the centre finds ithard to hear, partly because of psychological distance, and partly because whatis being said is inconvenient. And so the marginalized are forced to shout untilhoarse and can end up sounding shrill. . . . (Dalal 1998, pp. 206–7, italics inoriginal)

Over the last few years we have been working within the British Associ-ation of Psychotherapists (BAP) to explore matters of ‘race’ and equity inthe organization. In a Working Note Andrew Cooper wrote the following:

We think that for black and ethnic minority people the experience of racismtends to be pervasive in one form or another – but this does not mean that thisis the whole of what their lives consist of! It is a dimension of personal and socialexperience. But a difficulty arises when they try to give voice to this aspect oftheir experience, because ‘white’ Anglo-Saxon people and institutions usuallydo not, or cannot, hear and simply take it seriously for what it is – one veryimportant matter that needs understanding, recognition, and thought. We thinkthe consequence of such a failure of response is predictable, and inevitable – a

36 BRITISH JOURNAL OF PSYCHOTHERAPY (2008) 24(1)

redoubled effort to make others ‘take in’ the seriousness of the issue, which canin turn lead to a more strenuous effort to renounce the (now even more)unpalatable communication. The stage is set for systematic misunderstandingand a culture of defensive ‘race relations’ – black people have a chip on theirshoulder and white people are racist. (Cooper 2005)

So, Whose Problem Is It?

It would appear, then, that for all the overt intentions of the white membersof analytic institutions, equal opportunity policies and our conviction that wewelcome all, there is indeed a problem for black trainees and, therefore, forpotential applicants and patients. Legally at the very least, this means thatthere is a problem for the institutions. The Race Relations (Amendment)Act of 2002 implies that training organizations such as ours are required toshow evidence that we are making serious attempts to address the reasonswhy so few black and minority ethnic people wish to join us.The fact that ourinstitutions have charitable status means that Association Objectives usuallyinclude statements about promoting, providing and increasing psychoana-lytic psychotherapy to relieve mental distress for the benefit of the public.Thereality of a twenty-first-century British ‘public’ is one of many colours andcultures, so the lack of wide representation of that society within this pro-fession raises worrying questions.

But these are legal, formal requirements. As a white individual I can takeup a number of different positions towards this but the answer to thequestion ‘Whose problem is it anyway?’ is that, however unfortunate wemight think it that so few black people want to train or come into analysis,and however uncomfortable the experience of any black trainee, it is actu-ally the black person’s problem. It may be that the cause of the problem islocated with the white centre, but the problem is carried by those at the blackmargins. So, as a white person, why should I worry? I’m OK! Any motivationfor me to address the matter can only be rooted in social conscience, a needto increase numbers of trainees and potential patients or a desire to assuageuncomfortable feelings of guilt and shame.

What several of the extracts quoted above suggest is that we are talkinghere about an interaction, a relationship between the marginalized andthose at the centre, between those struggling to have their voice heard andthose who fail to respond. The asymmetrical relationship relates to differ-entials in terms of power but it is a relationship, and this deafness hasimplications for both.

As Cooper points out, the experience of racism as a particular dimensionof life for a black individual is one which ‘“white” Anglo-Saxon people andinstitutions usually do not, or cannot, hear and simply take it seriously forwhat it is – one very important matter that needs understanding, recognition’.Given that our work is to hear, take seriously, recognize, understand andrespond to all sorts of difficult matters, how can we understand this particu-

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lar deafness? Why is it that it seems so difficult to have ordinary conversa-tions together about the matter? Why do we in analytic institutions find it sohard to apply the talking and listening cure to ourselves?

Returning to Dalal’s discussion, he goes on to say:

The power of ideology is such that the ‘whiteness’ as organizing principle isunconscious. In other words the white ensign at the centre is invisible, and it isonly the black ensign at the margins that is able to be seen. Thus those at thecentre feel themselves to be innocent, unfairly assaulted from without. (Dalal1998, pp. 206–7)

The white ensign is painted against a white background and hence is madeinvisible. In his paper ‘Notes on white supremacy’, the Jungian analyst JamesHillman writes: ‘White casts its own white shadow and casts it into the black’(Hillman 1986). He goes on to suggest that this very whiteness, this failure todiscern the ensign, this blindness, this lack of shade and colour created by theurge for supremacy, contains its own problem. For the price of this privilegeis a white-out. Without noticing, the white shadow is projected onto theblack and, as with all projections, something is lost and we are left depleted,whitewashed.

A Difficult Subject for Thought

In his Preface to the 1988 edition of his book, White Racism, Joel Kovelargues that:

. . . Western civilization is saturated, not merely with racism – that is obviousenough – but with the elementary gesture out of which racism is constructed:splitting the world in the course of domination. It follows that:

• racism antecedes the notion of race, indeed, it generates the races;• racism supersedes the psychology of prejudice, indeed, it creates that psy-

chology for its own purposes;• racism evolves historically, and may be expected to appear in different

phases in different epochs and locales;• racism cannot be legislated out of existence, since what is put into law

always serves to legitimate the system which generates and is defined by it.(Kovel 1988, pp. xii–xiv)

These are strong statements but important ones if we are to take on theongoing task of recognizing and thinking about the racist thought as itappears in the mind. The strength of Kovel’s statements underlines theinsidious and pervasive nature of this dynamic and reminds us that wecannot remove ourselves from it by mere denial or a sort of cheerful self-imposed blindness.

As the psychology of racism is, Kovel asserts, created by racism, we needto take care when theorizing about it that we are not reinforcing the


problem we seek to describe.2 The usual psychoanalytic attempts to under-stand racism lean heavily on the concepts of splitting and projection.However, we know that just telling a patient that they are projecting haslittle real impact. What might make a difference is for the individual to getto know themselves a little better and face their own shadow. Even betterif they can also get to know the other on whom they are projecting, toreality test through relationship. Then it becomes more possible for theprojections to be withdrawn. Rather than focusing, therefore, on a theor-etical understanding of the mechanisms of racism, I am interested in howdifficult ordinary thought and talk about the matter is, how hard it is forwhite people to own and think about our own racist thoughts and behavi-our and to engage with, listen to and seek to understand the experiencesof black and minority ethnic people.

In his book Partisans in an Uncertain World, Paul Hoggett writes:

. . . uncritical thought will not simply be passive but will actively cling to a beliefin the appearance of certain things. It actively refuses, rejects as perverse orcrazy, any view that may contradict it. To think critically one must therefore beable to use aggression to break through the limitations of one’s own assump-tions or to challenge the ‘squatting rights’ of the colonizer within one’s owninternal world. (Hoggett 1992, p. 29)

Global colonization by white Western Christian culture has meant that, forthose of us who are defined as belonging to such a culture, we can, if wechoose, avoid external pressure to make that act of aggression that chal-lenges the ‘squatting rights’ of the internal colonizer. However, not noticingthis figure who lurks in a corner of our internal worlds does not mean hedoes not exist. I suggest that failing to attempt the act of aggression to breakinto our uncritical thought means that an area of internal life remainsunexamined and that we are the poorer for it.

To think differently about my place in the world and the privileges it hasbrought me requires an undoing of a well-laid system of assumptions aboutmyself, and to break through their limitations is not easy. But, like anyunconscious dynamic, the assumption, the matter taken for granted serves tolimit and deaden the creative life of the psyche. Hoggett introducesWinnicott’s ideas on creativity as the alternative to compliance and adapta-tion. Play and creativity imply an internal freedom that allows imaginationto do its work (Winnicott 1974). This is the very opposite of the ‘systematicmisunderstanding and a culture of defensive “race relations” – black peoplehave a chip on their shoulder and white people are racist’ that Cooper writesabout and which describes the rigid and defensive atmosphere that can soeasily arise when we attempt to talk about this subject. This is not an easy

2. For an important critique of analytic theories of racism, see Dalal 2002.

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matter to play with. It raises feelings of guilt, shame, envy, denial and defi-ance, and a fear of getting it wrong, of saying the unforgivable and ofexposing an internal badness.

According to Bion, whenever two people or two parts of a person are inrelation to each other, the emotional experience that links the two compriseLove (L), Hate (H) and Knowledge (K). Whereas L and H are rooted morein the paranoid-schizoid position, K is seen as an aspect of the depressiveposition:

The K link is that linkage present when one is in the process of getting to knowthe other in an emotional sense, and this is to be clearly distinguished from thesort of knowing that means giving a piece of knowledge about something orsomeone. (Symington & Symington 1996, p. 78)

Many of those interviewed by James-Franklin reported being told that,because this was depth, analytic work, differences in ‘race’ and colour wereirrelevant. Yet, whenever anyone other than themselves acknowledged thefact of difference, their experience was one of relief.

Clearly to acknowledge that I am white and you are black does not bringa new fact into the room and doesn’t necessarily mean a getting-to-knowyou in an emotional sense. If that were all then the acknowledgement isirrelevant. However, because racism ‘saturates’ the political and social back-drop to our encounter, as Kovel puts it, this acknowledgement is a first stepin recognizing that this fact of difference will have a significant impact on thebusiness of getting to know each other.This acknowledgement is not blind tocolour but recognizes a difference in experience and hence in vertex orperspective. Then there is the possibility that these vertices, these perspec-tives, can be voiced and heard which in turn offers the hope that the moreparanoid–schizoid links of L and H that are always there in racism might betempered a little by those of K.

After all, if differences in colour are so irrelevant for depth work, wemight ask why it can be so hard for the black trainee to raise them with whitetrainers, supervisors and analysts. The responses reported certainly have adefensive ring to them as if something uncomfortable is being whitewashed.

To fail to acknowledge difference, to assume colour-blindness leads us intothe realm of –K:

K symbolizes knowledge, and –K is its opposite. It symbolizes not only ignor-ance, but also a trend to remain actively in ignorance with the adoption of anattitude in which there is an advantage of avoiding awareness or a disadvantageto approximating to the truth. (Bion Talamo, Borgogno & Merciai 2000, p. 122)

A Defence Against Racism

Julian Lousada describes two traumatic aspects of racism in his paper ‘Thehidden history of an idea: the difficulties of adopting anti-racism’:


There are, it seems to me, two primary traumas associated with racism. The firstis the appalling inhumanity that is perpetrated in its name. The second is therecognition of the failure of the ‘natural’ caring/humanitarian instincts and ofthinking to be victorious over this evil.We should not underestimate the anxietythat attends the recognition of these traumas. In its extreme form this anxietycan produce an obsequious guilt which undertakes reparation (towards theoppressed object) regardless of the price. What this recognition of a profoundlynegative force fundamentally challenges is the comfort of optimism. Being ableto tolerate the renunciation of this idea, and the capacity to live in the presenceof our own positive and destructive thoughts and instincts is the only basis onwhich the commitment to change can survive without recourse to fundamen-talism. (Lousada 1997, p. 41)

For the white liberal the word ‘racism’ itself sets up an immediate accus-atory tone from which we flinch. Here is the challenge to ‘the back to basicsidea that we are all inherently decent and that evil and hatred belong to others’.If we are to rid ourselves of this uncomfortable notion that we are notinherently decent then we need to find the others to whom the evil andhatred belong. There are those who are blatantly racist and who performextreme racist attacks which are alien and abhorrent. Yet I suggest we needto consider the possibility that the very existence of the extreme racistsmeans that a container is provided into which the racist self can beprojected.

The Analytic Profession

For the last few years I have been asked to teach some seminars on theeffects of difference in ‘race’ on the supervision process on a course we runat the BAP. I started researching the matter of how differences in ‘race’,colour and culture might affect the work of supervision, and was interestedto note that I could find no mention of the topic in the books I read onsupervision in psychoanalytic or Jungian analytic psychotherapy. The onlyexceptions were several black therapists who have written on the matter ofracism in psychotherapy and who make reference to their experience asblack supervisors such as Dalal (2002), Davids (1998), Evans Holmes (1992)and Thomas (1992).

This is in stark contrast to the modern texts on supervision in counsel-ling and social work where at least one chapter on the issue seems alwaysto be included. However, on reading some of those chapters in the coun-selling supervision books I found the majority to take a position of culturalrelativism and, in my view, fail to address how the dynamics of ‘race’ andracism can be thought about from the perspective of the internal worldof the psyche. It seemed that the deeper the analytic enterprise, the lessthe subject is considered of relevance until it is ignored completely in theanalytic texts.

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Theory

One explanation put forward for this silence is that psychoanalytic theoryitself is fundamentally Euro-centric and not applicable, therefore, outside itsown white, middle-class world. This is certainly a serious challenge thatneeds to be taken on more directly from within the profession. Our theoriesdo indeed imply that their explanations of the human psyche are universal.If they offer a model of the mind which is true and valid, then it must beapplicable to all human minds – or what are we saying about the world? Yetthe assumption that the external world and matters of culture, experiencesof racism, differences in social mores and customs have no impact on theinternal world of the individual, results in a certain sterility within the theoryitself, as well as increasing its isolation from more main-stream thought.Perhaps if the marginalized black voices were to be respected, heard,debated and thought about, the central theories would become enriched anddeveloped. Such debate requires a confidence in the robustness of ourtheoretical ground that it can be tested rigorously and not merely crumblebeneath external attack and internal angst.

My argument is that the theory is sufficiently robust and helpful and weneed to take care not to abandon the analytic frame. For the inevitableanxiety and fear of the racist thought and the subsequent shame and guiltcan lead us as white therapists to give up on theory inappropriately whenworking with black patients, trainees, supervisees etc. I have explored someof the issues relating to direct clinical work elsewhere (Morgan 1998, 2002,2007). Here I want to develop the theme of how this anxiety can get in theway of good clinical practice in training and supervision.

Case Example – Alan

Due to the complications concerning confidentiality I shall be using two caseexamples both of which appear in a paper on race and supervision in theBAP book, On Supervision: Psychoanalytic and Jungian Analytic Perspec-tives (Petts & Shapley 2007).The following example is taken from work witha white supervisee whose patient, Alan, is a man in his forties who was bornin the Caribbean.

When he was 6 years old Alan’s parents came to Britain to find work andAlan was looked after by his grandmother and two aunts in the Caribbean.Whilst there were constant phone calls and letters from his parents, becauseof the costs of travel he did not see them again till he was sent for aged 13.Alan did well at school and further education and was now a successful andwell-respected business man.

As the therapy progressed Alan experienced any feelings of dependencyon his therapist as difficult. He always seemed to have good things to replaceany breaks in sessions so they were never missed. The session we werediscussing in supervision referred to the first one after a three-week break.


Alan was recounting what he had done whilst the therapist was away – whichincluded a consultation with an astrologist, visiting an alternative practi-tioner and reading several self-help psychology books – all of which hepraised enthusiastically. The therapist made the interpretation that he wastelling her how well he had done without her and how others had replacedher so she wasn’t missed because it was hard to acknowledge how aban-doned he had felt. She then linked this to being left by his parents when hewas young, and the replacement of his mother by his grandmother and aunts.Alan became angry, pointing out that what had happened to him was verycommon amongst his generation in the Caribbean, and that it was the failureof the therapist to understand his culture that had led her to interpret it asa problem for him.

Under this attack the supervisee abandoned her initial thought and herthinking became paralysed. Alan’s spoken accusations matched her anxietythat she could be identified with the abusive colonizer, and for the momentshe was no longer the therapist trying to make sense of her patient’s innerworld. It was as if she feared to maintain an analytic stance from an anxietythat an interpretation would be somehow to pathologize a whole people andan entire generation. She moved instead to the apparent safety of anthro-pology and thus lost the task of the analytic work.

It is certainly true that socio-political imbalances resulting from coloniza-tion and slavery has meant large numbers of people migrating to the colonialnation to seek work and a better life, and having to leave behind youngfamilies to the care of family elders. Nevertheless, the fact that this wasperfectly understandable and on a large scale, and that the individual waswell cared for by known and loved relatives, does not mean that there was noloss for the individual child, or that the surfacing of internal, unconsciousconsequences in the transference cannot be interpreted.

Alan’s response required that she heard his raising of the matter ofdifference, his need to assert that he was not alone and that there was aproblem of understanding between them. However, she also needed to staywith her interpretation. What looked like a respect of the view of the ‘other’was, in fact, to fail to face the underlying questions raised by ‘otherness’, toallow the patient to prevent the therapist functioning analytically as well asto desert the responsibility to the inner world of the patient. The dynamicbehind this abandonment of the analytic endeavour was the arousal of thetherapist’s fear of her own racism and hence of feelings of shame and guilt.Ironically, of course, the consequence for the black patient was that he wouldreceive a second-rate therapy.

Writing on the general point Fakhry Davids says:

. . . please note how easy it is for one, in an apparent attempt to keep an openmind, to embark on a road that leads inevitably, I think, to a position of culturalrelativism that is clinically sterile. Today there is a genre of psychoanalyticwriting, critical of our mainstream theories for their ethnocentrism, that

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advance instead alternative conceptualizations claiming to allow for greatercultural variation . . . are meant to alert the clinician to the dangers of inadvert-ently overlooking the influence of culture, and to provide theories that are‘fairer’ to the psyche of the culturally different patient. I would suggest that suchapproaches have the diagnosis wrong. The problem of ignoring the patient’scultural background is not so much due to defective theory as a to a reluctanceon the part of the analyst to acknowledge the patient’s difference, which in turnreflects a fear of entering the domain of internal racism – both analyst’s andpatient’s – within the treatment situation. Providing one is willing to enter thisterrain, I find that existing psychoanalytic theories are perfectly adequate forwork with the culturally different. (Davids 1998, p. 7)

‘Providing one is willing to enter this terrain of internal racism,’ says Davids.Easily said and yet, apparently, so very difficult to do.

Practice

On most aspects relating to clinical work we would expect that those whomight be regarded as the elders of the profession who act as therapists,teachers and supervisers to be at the stage of greater competence than thetrainee, especially at the start of their training. However, when someonewhite is, for example, supervising someone black, the latter is likely to be farmore knowing regarding issues of ‘race’ and racism.

The white supervisor, training analyst or seminar leader, dwelling as theydo at the centre, is more likely to have blanked out the colour dynamicaltogether. Racist thoughts are unlikely to have been the subject of a train-ing analysis and, indeed, the shadow aspect of the fact of having undergonean analysis is that the individual can maintain an internal position as if theywere now free from the primitive defences of splitting and projection. It isthe myth of the complete analysis.

We now have a reversal of the expected situation where the trainee ismore aware, more knowing, more competent than the trainer. If the whiteindividual does not allow the possibility that they might have racist thoughtsand assumes that there is nothing to be explored, nothing interior to them-selves to be analysed, no problem of difference since difference is ignored,then any difficulties have to be held by the black trainee or the black patientfor whom the consequences may well be destructive.

Should the white supervisor or teacher be unconscious, regarding his orher internal racism, for the trainer/trainee pair to develop and for learningfor both to take place, the trainer needs to become conscious that, on thismatter, they do not know. Even this apparently small move is not easy.Because they are so hard to notice, acknowledge and hold, any racist feelingsmay be rejected from a need to maintain a benign sense of self. If the internalracist organization is denied it cannot be confronted. Add to this a power


dynamic inevitable in any training relationship, the pressure to sustain theplace of knowing is considerable. To sustain such a position the unconsciousincompetence becomes projected onto either the black supervisee or theblack patient. By perceiving the failure to be in the other, the internal racistremains unchallenged and this particular organization within the super-visor’s mind is reinforced.

Working with Racism

Regardless of how we view the origins of the divisions into ‘races’ and thefunction of colour racism within Western culture, according to most analyticliterature on the subject, the racist thought itself can be regarded as adefence – essentially of splitting and projection.When we fail to observe andexplore these racist thoughts which will occur, we may succeed in avoidingthe ‘bad’ thought we do not wish to own and thus maintain a degree ofpsychic comfort, but we also miss a deeper conflict that the racist thought isa defence against.Thus the observation of and response to difference can beconsidered in ordinary transference terms. Indeed, the negative influences ofracist responses can be thought about as a potentially useful and importantroute into transference material.

Dorothy Evans Holmes in her paper ‘Race and transference in psycho-analysis and psychotherapy’ considers the way that references to race cangive access to transference reactions in the therapeutic situation:

Often it is said that patients’ racist remarks in therapy constitute a defensiveshift away from more important underlying conflict and that the therapistshould interpret the remarks as defence and resistance. Whilst it is the thera-pist’s ultimate aim to help the patient understand the protective uses ofdefences, this aim can best be achieved only after the defences are elaborated.(Evans Holmes 1992, p. 3)

When a black therapist is working with a white patient, it is likely that theracist defences for the patient will take subtle and secret forms. Because ofthe guilt attached to these responses, the patient will work hard to keep suchfeelings from surfacing openly in the room, and indeed are likely to beswiftly suppressed even as they surface in the mind.What the white therapistmight be able to contribute to thinking about this matter – both theoreticallyand clinically – is personal experience of both the racist thought and of thedesire to be rid of it. Of the feelings of shame and guilt which keep us fromacknowledging what arises in our minds.

Case Example – David

A black member of a supervision group was working with a white man,David. David, whilst insisting that the therapy was very helpful to him, was

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consistently late and missed sessions from time to time. The therapist fre-quently reported feeling irritated and despairing in her countertransference,and when he began saying that maybe it was time to end therapy, sherecognized her own wish for him to leave. During the reporting of a sessionI found myself wondering whether this therapist was able to do the work,and I had the thought that another (white) member of the group would havebeen a better ‘fit’ for this patient, that she would have provided a bettercontainer for him. Behind these thoughts was a sense of disparagement ofthe therapist. I was seeing the therapist as inferior, not up to the job, and thatthis particular therapeutic pairing would not be able to work.

As the conversation developed I became increasingly aware of thisthought. Hot on its heels was a feeling of shame when I realized my dispar-agement was connected to her blackness.This was ‘racist’ and I wanted to berid of it from my mind. I began to notice that I, as well as the other membersof the group, was beginning to relate to her in a rather over-positive way,criticisms were kept to a minimum and much empathy was being offered forher having to work with this ‘difficult’ patient. It all felt slightly patronizing,and there was an uncomfortable sense that we were heading for a sort ofcollusion whereby David would, sooner or later, leave therapy.

Initially, when David started his therapy, the matter of difference of colourbetween them was raised and he was keen to assure his therapist that thiswas no problem for him. Unless the racist defences are very open andconscious (in which case a white patient is unlikely to start therapy with ablack therapist in the first place), anything but this denial of a problem isunlikely. But conscious denial does not mean that something does not exist.There may be an idealization and/or a denigration of the blackness of thetherapist. Guilt, shame and the rejection of shadow aspects result in theattempt to turn away from, to disown such disagreeable, ‘bad’ feelings andthoughts.

What the white supervisor may be able to offer here is a recognition andacknowledgement through identification with the patient’s situation. In thesupervision session my own countertransference reactions needed to beunderstood as mirroring the contempt of the patient. It was the therapistwho was no good. She needed to be got rid of by lateness, missed sessionsand eventually giving up altogether. My thought that she was inadequate asa therapist was a clue that there was a projection of these unwanted aspectsinto her. If I could convince myself that the problem was her and not myhated and hateful feelings, then she could be rejected and I would berelieved of feeling badly.

Once this thought could be allowed to surface, we could begin to think.Webegan to see that David’s dismissal of the therapist and of the work could beseen as his need to denigrate her as a black woman, and that this hid adeeper internal conflict. The denigration and the racist defence neededelaborating before that underlying conflict could be brought to light. In the


next session the therapist made an interpretation along the lines we haddiscussed. Not unexpectedly, David replied that there was no problem, thather being black was fine with him, was she accusing him of being racist, etc.The next session he phoned and cancelled. However, he arrived visiblyshaken to the following session. He had started out late and had to run forthe bus but, as he reached the bus stop, the driver – who was black – despitehaving seen David coming, closed the doors and pulled away from the busstop. David ‘lost it’ and began yelling at the bus, shouting at the driver. Whatshook him, in particular, was the raw, racist nature of the insults he heardhimself shouting.

At first David found it difficult to speak about this incident to his therapistand was clearly overcome with shame at what he had said.The therapist wasable to work with him to surface these feelings and to gather them into thetransference.Again, his shame was excruciating but, seeing that his therapistwas able to withstand these disparaging, attacking thoughts that were nowin the room between them, he gradually was able to allow them to exist.Complex transference material began to emerge concerning his experienceof a depressed mother who was constantly despised and belittled by hisfather and by whom he felt abandoned. Hiding behind his need to holdhis therapist as inferior were his own feelings of worthlessness and self-disparagement.

None of this is straightforward, of course.Aspects of David’s contempt forhis therapist related to gender rather than ‘race’, and we do not know how hemight have been with a black male therapist. The point, perhaps, is that weare not blank screens as certain facts concerning gender, age, ‘race’, etc. areclearly visible to each other. Nor do we come blankly to face such factsconcerning the other, but bring with us personal, familial, social and culturalbaggage to the encounter.

Conclusion

The Macpherson Report following the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry definesinstitutionalized racism as:

the collective failure of an organization to provide an appropriate and profes-sional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin. It canbe detected in processes, attitudes and behaviours which amount to discrimi-nation through unwitting prejudice, thoughtlessness and racist stereotypingwhich disadvantages ethnic minority people. (MacPherson 1999)

Of course the effects of such discrimination on the black individual isharmful and enough in and of itself to warrant any organization struggling toface full on its own institutionalized racism. What I have argued here is that,alongside concern for the black member of such an organization, we should

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place a recognition that ‘prejudice, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping’also do damage to its white members and impoverish both theory andpractice.

It is important to note the use of the term ‘unwitting’ in Macpherson’sdefinition. In their presentation to the IAAP Congress on racism in Brazil inCape Town, 2007, Paula and Walter Boechat quoted from a publication by agroup of journalists and sociologists on their research on racism in Braziliansociety (Folha de S. Paulo 1998). They called their results ‘Racismo Cordial’or ‘Cordial Racism’.This struck me as a rather apt term for the sort of racismthat exists within our institutions. Cordial, but no less deadly for that.

I return to Kovel’s word ‘saturate’ which is a good one for the way inwhich racism has penetrated every corner of the society into which we are allborn.There is no position one can take which is outside it. If we acknowledgethe racist backdrop to our world then we also have to recognize the particu-lar prejudicial veil which is the inheritance of all white members of thissociety.The veil may well be one of cordiality but it has guilt, shame and envywoven into it, complicated as it is by the hatred of the internal racist. It is fearof such shame which freezes our curiosity about each other and prevents usfrom having ordinary conversations about the reality of the external and theinternal divides caused by racism.Yet, only by finding ways of talking to eachother can we gain knowledge of and develop relationship with the other andwith ourselves. As psychoanalytic psychotherapists we know a thing or twoabout curiosity and conversation, and I suggest that there is much to gain byapplying this talking cure to ourselves.

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from Group Analysis, Psychoanalysis and Sociology. London: Brunner-Routledge.Davids, F. (1998) The Lionel Monteith Lecture, Lincoln Centre and Clinic for

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Lowe, F. (2006) Racism as a borderline issue: the avoidance and marginalization ofrace in psychotherapy. In Foster et al. (eds), Difference: An Avoided Topic inPractice, pp. 43–60. London: Karnac.

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ISSUES OF ‘RACE’ IN PSYCHOANALYTIC PSYCHOTHERAPY: WHOSE PROBLEM IS IT ANYWAY?

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