2022 Yasmin Roberts Memorial Lecture - "Journeying Toward Racial Equity in North American Psychoanalysis"

Race as a lens through which we achieve psychoanalytic understanding is not universally valued or adopted in institutional psychoanalysis. There is either -or-ism-either we are psychoanalysts who stay true to our traditions, or we threaten, weaken, dilute, or confuse the identity by errantly venturing into the social realm. Because of this persistent bifurcation, there is no widely accepted set of standards regarding race in psychoanalysis: for study in institutes, for professional practice, for scholarly inquiry, for admission and retention, or for career progression. The presentation will critique this current situation by examining how it came to be, the stubborn resistances to change, and will discuss how it will be challenged, with a focus on the work of the Holmes Commission. The talk will offer a view of how psychoanalysis will be strengthened when and if it adopts a “yes and” point of view that recognizes considerations of race as an essential additional element of psychoanalysis.