Racism and Other Traumatic Inequalities: Editors’ Introduction

Abstract

Why would we, at Psychoanalysis, Self and Context, choose to feature and build an issue around an article submitted by a Black Kleinian analyst? Without question, we welcome any article submitted by a psychoanalytic practitioner who is Black, Indigenous, or a self-identified Person of Color. We were delighted that Dr. Ebony Dennis chose to submit her article to PSC. Of all places, she chose our Self-Psychology journal. This intrigued us. Her submission was at the encouragement of her supervisor, someone who is a wellrespected member of this community. Sending this paper on to peer review gave us some time to consider how we might respond should the paper be accepted. What kind of welcome could we offer this colleague from another theoretical community? What would her paper ask of us? How would we be challenged? What kind of dialogue might be possible? Could we find common ground? Ultimately, we saw this paper as a challenge to our community to more directly, in our written words, confront racism and other traumatic inequalities. We are quite aware that many in this community, both nationally and internationally, have actively involved themselves in various issues of injustice, trauma, and healing, but as a professional community, Self-Psychology has not said nearly enough about the deeply troubling race relations in North America or beyond. This is not unusual. Psychoanalysis, across theoretical perspectives, has struggled to find a way to integrate a social, cultural, political, sexual, and historical lens. Kohut (1973), in his article “Psychoanalysis in a Troubled World”, wrote the following: