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- Hello.

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My name is Yvette Esprey, and
I'm wanting to speak today

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about a subject that is
particularly important to me

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and has particular relevance
for me both in my life

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as a clinician and in my personal life.

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That topic is the one of race,

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and specifically the topic
of race in psychotherapy.

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I want to clarify at
the outset that my slant

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and my specific focus in this lecture

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is going to be from a
relational perspective,

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looking particularly at the subjectivity

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of the therapist and of the clinician.

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I think that typically,
certainly historically,

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when people have spoken
or written about race

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in the clinical dyad or in
psychotherapeutic contexts,

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the focus has been on the
racially-imbued material

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or the racially-imbued dynamics

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that the client brings to the space,

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and I think that whilst that is of course

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of absolute importance and relevance,

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what does sometimes get missed

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is the subjectivity of the clinician.

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Certainly, if we are thinking about

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an intersubjective space
and relational space,

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we cannot but look at the
subjectivity of the clinician,

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and that is really going to be

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what I want to focus on
in the next short while.

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The topic of my lecture
is Raising the Color Bar:

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Thinking about Race in the Dyad

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from a Relational Perspective.

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I want to give just a
little bit of context

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to my particular interest in this area

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and my particular experience,

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because I do think that when it comes to

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talking about race in the dyad,

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there is often an implicit,
if not overtly articulated,

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question about whose voice
is doing the speaking,

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and there's the implicit
question around whether or not

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my voice is the right
voice to be doing so.

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I stand here as a white
person, talking about race,

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and do I in fact have license to do so?

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I think that that is an ongoing question,

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it's an ongoing debate
that certainly I sit with

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and I would ask you to sit with as well.

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I am South African, and I
work in clinical context

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in Johannesburg, South Africa.

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That, by implication, means
that every day of my work

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and every day of my life
is steeped in some way

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in racially-imbued history and context.

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Coming to America, I have been struck by

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some of the similarities
between our contexts

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in terms of the relevance of race.

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In fact, I recently read a book

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by Chimamanda Ngozi
Adichie called Americanah,

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if you haven't read it,
I highly recommend it,

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where she really speaks with such clarity

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and accuracy and intimacy about some of

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the racial dynamics that she
encountered here in America.

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It's written in fictional form,

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but I think it's largely autobiographical,

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and I would really recommend
it just in terms of offering

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a particular kind of lens into the context

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which immigrants experience
when they come to this country.

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I had my own experience of that,

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coming to America a few years ago.

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I was studying in the
Smith College MSW program,

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and coming from a context of apartheid

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and of racial segregation
that I do in South Africa,

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coming into the Smith College context

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was really the first time
in my clinical experience

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that I had the opportunity
to openly speak about race,

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to openly interrogate race in the dyad,

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but also to openly interrogate

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my own racial identity
and my own racial history.

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It was an enormously
challenging experience.

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It was enormously painful,

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but it was also enormously hopeful for me,

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and I took that experience and
made a contract with myself

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to return to South
Africa and to in some way

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continue that dialogue,
not only within myself

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but also within my professional context.

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What has arisen from
that is a reading group,

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a study group which I facilitate.

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We've been running now for three years,

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and within that context,

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it's a context of multiracial clinicians,

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we talk not only about the
clinical manifestations of race

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but we also talk about the racial selves

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that we take into our clinical contexts,

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and the racial selves which we imbue

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and which we live in within
our professional contexts.

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It has certainly been a journey

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of extreme growth for
all of us in the group,

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and it has certainly broadened

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my internal dialogue in a
very, very profound way.

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I'm positioning myself quite deliberately.

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I'm positioning myself as a white woman

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born into South Africa in the 1970s,

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and I'm doing that with a purpose.

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I strongly believe that
we cannot speak about race

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without speaking about context,

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and that is different to
other clinical factors.

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If we're talking about mood disorders

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or if we're talking about
personality disorders,

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or if we're talking about
specific clinical issues,

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we very, very seldom contextualize
that particular issue

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in terms of place and
historical context, et cetera.

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But when it comes to
race, I firmly believe

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that context is enormously important,

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which means that the way
that I speak about race

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is going to be different
to the way that you

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speak about race or the way
that you think about race,

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and I want us to hold that
tension throughout this lecture.

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When I first came here,
I sat in on a lecture

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given by Neil Altman, who
is really one of the current

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contemporary thinkers
around race in the dyad.

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He described race in
America, racism in America,

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as the raw nerve of the
country and he spoke about

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the openness and the
vulnerability of that raw nerve.

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I was aware, in listening to
him, and aware in speaking now,

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how fragile a conversation,
any conversation about race,

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can be, because there's always

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that possibility for
misunderstanding or misconstrual

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or inadvertent injuring,
and so, once again,

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I hold that in mind as
I speak to you today.

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Before I continue into the
substance of the lecture,

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I want to create a little bit of

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a context for it in your own mind,

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and in order to do so I'd like
to ask you some questions,

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and I ask you to give a moment or two

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to reflecting on these questions.

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The first question is this:
when was the first time

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you thought about your
racial identity, your race?

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When was the first time
that you became aware of it?

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Do you think about your race when you

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enter into clinical or
professional contexts?

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Is it something that you hold
in mind in a conscious way?

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Do you think that race is a factor

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to be held in mind in psychotherapy?

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Do you think that race is something that

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we should be always thinking
about in psychotherapy?

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Now, the way in which you
reflect upon these questions

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and the way in which you answer them

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will inevitably be
impacted on by a number of

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your own personal characteristics,

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by your own subjectivity,
by your particular race,

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your particular racial history
and identity and context

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in whatever country you may have been born

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and whatever social context
you may have grown up.

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Your answers will be context-specific.

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I'm guessing, and of course,
again, this is something

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that I'm extrapolating
about and I might be wrong,

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but I'm guessing that if
you are a white person

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it is entirely possible that
your race has been something

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you have not had to think about.

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As one of my colleagues in my
group said, a white colleague,

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when we were talking about whiteness

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and what it means to
think about whiteness,

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she said, "Thinking about
my whiteness is like

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"a fish trying to think
about itself in water.

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"It's impossible to do,

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"to separate myself from my whiteness."

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I would imagine that if
you're a person of color,

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that your response would
be very different to that,

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that in all likelihood
being aware of your race

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has been an intrinsic part
of your life awareness

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and an intrinsic part of your history.

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Of course, thinking about
these questions is relevant

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as we go into the context
of our clinical work.

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The subjectivity which we take
into our clinical contexts

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is profound and powerful, and
it is really only in the last

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I'd say 25 years, 30 years in
terms of relational thinking

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that we are thinking increasingly

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and considering more intently
our own subjectivities

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and the way in which we
take that into the room.

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The way that we speak about race,

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the way that we think about race,

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depends on where we come from.

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I'm acutely aware that
coming to this country

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and speaking about race is
far easier for me than it is

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to do so at home, and that
again is something that

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I'm going to be holding in
mind throughout this lecture.

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I have one final question
to ask before I continue.

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How well do you think
that you were trained

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to hold race in mind during
your clinical training?

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How much of a focus was it?

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Do you think that it
was adequately covered?

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Until recently, in many
clinical programs, race has been

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taught through the lens
of good cultural practice,

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or through the lens of
cross-cultural sensitivity,

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and there was a great deal
that has been written about

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how to work cross-culturally,
or how to work cross-racially.

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Whilst I think that many of these inputs

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have been enormously important

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and a lot of their thinking
is highly relevant,

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quite often the subjectivity

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of the therapist has been overlooked.

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However, if you look at the journal

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Psychoanalytic Dialogues, it's
a relationally-based journal,

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and if you're not familiar with it

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I encourage you to seek it out,

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you will see that a great
deal has been written in

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the last 15 to 20 years from
an experience-near perspective,

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in other words from the
perspective of the clinician,

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and some of the foremost
writers in that area

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are people like Kimberlyn
Leary, Melanie Suchet,

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Neil Altman, Smith Hama,
and reading their papers

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and reading their
incredibly honest portrayal

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of their own experience
in the room around race

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and racial dynamics is
profound and certainly

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enormously informative and I
would encourage you to read.

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I want to think a little
bit and to give some detail

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about the relational lens
that I bring to this lecture

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and the way in which I think
about race overridingly.

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It is without a shadow
of a doubt that if we

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are analytically-oriented
clinicians, which I am,

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and if we think more
psychodynamically about our work,

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we have to, by imperative, move beyond

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classical analytic theory
in order to consider race.

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A relational way of thinking
and working psychoanalytically

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has really paralleled a shift away

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from that core initial
classical assumption that

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the psyche is solely governed
by epigenetic forces.

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In other words, if we think about

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incredibly formative
assumptions in analytic theory,

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one of them is the belief
that the psyche is driven

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by particular forces and is
driven by its own experiences

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in the way that it is
formed and relationality

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really moves us beyond that in saying that

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we need to look beyond the
closed system of the psyche

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and to consider the impact
of the environment around it,

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and object relations obviously
did that, to an extent,

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but I think that relational
psychoanalytic thinking

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takes it one step further.

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It extends that influence
beyond the enclave

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of the domestic environment into

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the broader social and historical context.

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The emphasis in relationality
is on the social,

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and one of its premises
is that class and race

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are foregrounded in the way in which

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we present ourselves in clinical context,

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both ourselves as clinicians
and for our clients.

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Class and race, therefore,
and all other aspects

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of subjectivity and
identity, become enacted

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in the transference-countertransference
dynamic.

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Now, if we just think about
the shift that that proposes

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away from the original notion
of therapeutic neutrality,

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how as therapists we can no longer pretend

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00:13:42,088 --> 00:13:45,759
or even hope for a sense of neutrality

250
00:13:45,759 --> 00:13:48,761
in our subjectivity
when we are in the room,

251
00:13:48,761 --> 00:13:50,730
we resoundingly bring ourselves

252
00:13:50,730 --> 00:13:53,499
to the space and to the dynamic.

253
00:13:54,167 --> 00:13:56,636
Lynne Layton, who is one
of the current writers

254
00:13:56,636 --> 00:13:59,605
in the relational sphere, describes this

255
00:13:59,605 --> 00:14:02,141
as the politicization of the psyche,

256
00:14:02,675 --> 00:14:04,744
and she suggests that the psyche is very,

257
00:14:04,744 --> 00:14:07,680
very strongly molded and influenced

258
00:14:07,680 --> 00:14:10,516
by political, social and cultural factors.

259
00:14:10,716 --> 00:14:12,685
Of course this is an ongoing debate

260
00:14:12,685 --> 00:14:15,855
and somewhat of a controversy
in the analytic arena,

261
00:14:16,531 --> 00:14:18,691
where more classical
thinkers will say that

262
00:14:18,691 --> 00:14:21,527
that falls into the realm
of social psychology

263
00:14:21,527 --> 00:14:23,696
and in fact it's not analytic at all,

264
00:14:23,696 --> 00:14:27,533
whereas psychoanalytic
relationalists really argue,

265
00:14:27,533 --> 00:14:29,569
and I think quite compellingly,

266
00:14:29,569 --> 00:14:32,706
that the external environment
has a very, very direct

267
00:14:32,706 --> 00:14:36,842
and shaping impact on the
psyche, and we carry that

268
00:14:36,842 --> 00:14:41,213
through our unconscious
life, throughout life.

269
00:14:42,315 --> 00:14:44,784
This is a recognition
that our internal world

270
00:14:44,784 --> 00:14:49,122
are crucially impacted on
by the social and cultural

271
00:14:49,122 --> 00:14:52,525
and political systems
in which we are reared.

272
00:14:53,993 --> 00:14:55,595
I want to say that again:

273
00:14:55,595 --> 00:14:57,697
it's a recognition that our internal world

274
00:14:57,697 --> 00:15:01,200
are crucially impacted on
by the social, cultural

275
00:15:01,200 --> 00:15:04,437
and political systems
in which we are reared.

276
00:15:05,371 --> 00:15:07,874
I want you to, for the moment,

277
00:15:07,874 --> 00:15:10,510
to think about what that means for you.

278
00:15:11,978 --> 00:15:14,647
If I think about what it means for myself,

279
00:15:15,631 --> 00:15:20,631
I was born at the height of
apartheid in South Africa,

280
00:15:22,388 --> 00:15:24,290
which means that I was born into

281
00:15:24,290 --> 00:15:27,760
a political and a social system

282
00:15:27,760 --> 00:15:32,760
which legitimately advocated
for racially-based segregation.

283
00:15:34,567 --> 00:15:39,567
It legitimately advocated
for a division between

284
00:15:41,907 --> 00:15:46,907
the superior and the
inferior based on skin color.

285
00:15:47,780 --> 00:15:50,216
That's the context into which I was born.

286
00:15:50,616 --> 00:15:53,820
That is the environment
which will have been

287
00:15:53,820 --> 00:15:56,756
pressing against my development,

288
00:15:57,423 --> 00:16:02,423
and I have to own and acknowledge
that that will have had

289
00:16:02,561 --> 00:16:06,966
an impact on the growth of my
psyche and my internal world.

290
00:16:07,533 --> 00:16:09,669
And so I want you, as we
go through this lecture

291
00:16:09,669 --> 00:16:12,105
and in any thinking that
you might have afterwards,

292
00:16:12,105 --> 00:16:14,474
to think about where you come from,

293
00:16:14,474 --> 00:16:16,409
the context in which you are reared

294
00:16:16,409 --> 00:16:20,746
and how that might impact on
your internal scaffolding.

295
00:16:22,634 --> 00:16:24,918
Another core relational theme is that

296
00:16:24,918 --> 00:16:28,454
of social constructionism
and social recognition.

297
00:16:28,828 --> 00:16:30,389
Social regulation, sorry.

298
00:16:31,836 --> 00:16:34,460
If we consider this in the context

299
00:16:34,460 --> 00:16:37,630
of our particular
paradigm, then we need to

300
00:16:37,630 --> 00:16:40,466
recognize the history of
psychoanalytic thinking,

301
00:16:40,466 --> 00:16:44,236
and we need to recognize
that psychoanalysis developed

302
00:16:44,236 --> 00:16:48,774
within a particular cultural
and political hegemony,

303
00:16:50,096 --> 00:16:54,914
where aspects of identity
such as gender, race, class,

304
00:16:54,914 --> 00:16:59,490
sexual orientation were
assigned certain valances,

305
00:17:00,198 --> 00:17:02,455
and we need to be able to reflect

306
00:17:03,085 --> 00:17:07,326
on that hegemonic history
within our own paradigm

307
00:17:07,326 --> 00:17:10,062
and to interrogate it quite powerfully.

308
00:17:14,214 --> 00:17:17,036
And so, if I summarize
that, if we come from

309
00:17:17,036 --> 00:17:21,474
a relational perspective,
the social environment,

310
00:17:21,474 --> 00:17:23,909
what is considered to
be socially normative

311
00:17:23,909 --> 00:17:27,813
in a particular context have
the potential to contaminate

312
00:17:27,813 --> 00:17:31,517
and to shape the shade therapeutic space.

313
00:17:32,384 --> 00:17:35,054
I bring my subjectivity into the dyad

314
00:17:35,054 --> 00:17:39,325
and the client brings her
subjectivity into the dyad,

315
00:17:39,325 --> 00:17:44,325
and those two come together to
create a particular context,

316
00:17:46,486 --> 00:17:50,069
which I suggest very
strongly that we need to

317
00:17:50,069 --> 00:17:53,372
interrogate with intent
and with curiosity.

318
00:17:55,741 --> 00:17:59,879
Part of what enters into the
clinical dyad along with us

319
00:17:59,879 --> 00:18:03,048
is what we refer to as
normative unconscious processes,

320
00:18:03,048 --> 00:18:05,150
and I am going to go
into that a little bit.

321
00:18:05,243 --> 00:18:07,586
I want to define normative
unconscious processes

322
00:18:07,586 --> 00:18:09,221
a little bit later on.

323
00:18:10,085 --> 00:18:13,092
But there is something powerfully
unconscious that happens,

324
00:18:13,092 --> 00:18:14,860
so whilst we might think that we are

325
00:18:14,860 --> 00:18:17,697
aware of what racially-imbued material

326
00:18:17,697 --> 00:18:19,966
and what racially-imbued
dynamics we take in,

327
00:18:19,966 --> 00:18:22,768
or what we might think
is going on in the room,

328
00:18:22,768 --> 00:18:24,670
there is also a powerfully unconscious

329
00:18:24,670 --> 00:18:28,007
component to it which
I'd like to emphasize.

330
00:18:31,193 --> 00:18:34,280
I come into this lecture
holding a particular assumption,

331
00:18:35,372 --> 00:18:40,372
and that assumption is the
following: race is in the dyad.

332
00:18:42,289 --> 00:18:44,157
Race is in the room.

333
00:18:45,925 --> 00:18:49,061
There's no condition to that; it just is.

334
00:18:50,163 --> 00:18:52,464
It doesn't matter whether this is

335
00:18:52,464 --> 00:18:56,303
a same race dyad or a cross-race dyad,

336
00:18:57,179 --> 00:19:01,938
race is always present
in some form or other.

337
00:19:01,938 --> 00:19:04,199
Certainly sometimes it's far more overt,

338
00:19:04,906 --> 00:19:07,046
and at other times far more tacit,

339
00:19:07,279 --> 00:19:10,649
but it is always at play
in terms of how it shapes

340
00:19:10,649 --> 00:19:15,154
our identity and how it
shapes our being in the world.

341
00:19:16,914 --> 00:19:20,826
In the last two decades
of writing about race,

342
00:19:20,826 --> 00:19:24,697
this has really been strongly
emphasized by current writers,

343
00:19:25,943 --> 00:19:28,001
and what has been affected on historically

344
00:19:28,001 --> 00:19:30,069
is that race for much of the last century

345
00:19:30,069 --> 00:19:32,404
was ignored in analytic writing.

346
00:19:33,005 --> 00:19:34,874
It was considered to be at times

347
00:19:34,874 --> 00:19:37,009
an extraneous external factor;

348
00:19:37,009 --> 00:19:40,212
or, if brought into the room,
it was labeled as resistance;

349
00:19:40,212 --> 00:19:43,516
or it was avoided or denied completely.

350
00:19:44,316 --> 00:19:46,252
It's only with the more relational trend

351
00:19:46,252 --> 00:19:49,054
that this writing has begun to emerge.

352
00:19:51,140 --> 00:19:55,661
Race has so many parts
to play within the dyad,

353
00:19:56,276 --> 00:19:57,630
and I think that part of our challenge

354
00:19:57,630 --> 00:20:00,833
as clinicians is to really sit with all of

355
00:20:00,833 --> 00:20:04,003
the possibilities of what race might mean.

356
00:20:04,937 --> 00:20:09,937
Sometimes, it is race
itself that is the issue.

357
00:20:10,743 --> 00:20:12,212
My race and your race,

358
00:20:12,212 --> 00:20:15,013
and my race and your race
outside there in the world.

359
00:20:16,315 --> 00:20:19,318
Sometimes race is a red herring;

360
00:20:20,119 --> 00:20:24,524
it's a disguise for a deeper
internal psychic dynamic

361
00:20:25,216 --> 00:20:29,892
which is being cloaked
in the guise of race,

362
00:20:30,738 --> 00:20:33,799
but it is in fact about
something different.

363
00:20:34,505 --> 00:20:37,269
I had a particular client,
and I don't want to

364
00:20:37,269 --> 00:20:39,071
speak too much about clinical material

365
00:20:39,071 --> 00:20:43,075
but I'll give a skeleton
of this particular case,

366
00:20:43,736 --> 00:20:47,646
who struggles with her race.

367
00:20:47,713 --> 00:20:49,281
She is a young black woman

368
00:20:49,804 --> 00:20:52,051
and she struggles with her blackness.

369
00:20:53,786 --> 00:20:58,786
She believes that her sense of inferiority

370
00:20:59,759 --> 00:21:02,628
and her low self esteem is directly linked

371
00:21:02,628 --> 00:21:05,330
to the fact that she is a black woman.

372
00:21:06,065 --> 00:21:08,634
Upon further interrogation
and as we have peeled away

373
00:21:08,634 --> 00:21:11,971
the layers, and there were
many layers still to come,

374
00:21:11,971 --> 00:21:15,874
we have slowly started to
understand that blackness

375
00:21:16,458 --> 00:21:20,512
is a metaphor for a deep-seated insecurity

376
00:21:20,512 --> 00:21:23,082
which is related to
her particular position

377
00:21:23,620 --> 00:21:28,254
in her family hierarchy and
in her sibling hierarchy.

378
00:21:28,486 --> 00:21:31,623
Which in fact has nothing
to do with race at all,

379
00:21:31,623 --> 00:21:34,927
but because of the context
in which she has been reared

380
00:21:35,742 --> 00:21:39,131
and because of the particular
emphasis placed on race,

381
00:21:39,131 --> 00:21:42,935
it has become a very,
very convenient receptacle

382
00:21:42,935 --> 00:21:47,935
for all of her internal
insecurities and anxieties.

383
00:21:49,908 --> 00:21:51,844
Of course there's no
formula to working out

384
00:21:51,844 --> 00:21:55,280
what race might mean in a
particular clinical context.

385
00:21:55,280 --> 00:21:56,515
It is always something to be

386
00:21:56,515 --> 00:21:59,151
teased out within the dyad itself.

387
00:22:01,408 --> 00:22:05,091
But whatever place it has
and whatever role it plays,

388
00:22:05,091 --> 00:22:07,826
it is always present in some way.

389
00:22:08,460 --> 00:22:13,460
Even in same race dyads, where
it might not be something

390
00:22:13,532 --> 00:22:15,968
that comes up directly in the material,

391
00:22:16,502 --> 00:22:18,637
I certainly find, for
example when I'm sitting

392
00:22:18,637 --> 00:22:23,175
with a white client, that I
am tacitly invited to collude

393
00:22:23,851 --> 00:22:26,778
around certain ways of
thinking about race.

394
00:22:28,156 --> 00:22:29,694
That doesn't necessarily mean

395
00:22:29,694 --> 00:22:32,151
that it's a negative racial connotation

396
00:22:32,151 --> 00:22:35,687
or a racist connotation, but I'm aware,

397
00:22:35,687 --> 00:22:39,391
if I fine tune into what
is happening between us,

398
00:22:39,391 --> 00:22:44,391
that there is this invitation
to acknowledge our sameness

399
00:22:45,464 --> 00:22:49,101
and how our sameness differentiates us

400
00:22:49,101 --> 00:22:51,670
from other people outside of the room.

401
00:22:52,471 --> 00:22:55,990
It is really only when
we think consciously

402
00:22:55,990 --> 00:22:59,445
and with intent about
that kind of interaction

403
00:22:59,445 --> 00:23:02,814
that that insight can surface.

404
00:23:05,718 --> 00:23:08,087
Race is always in the dyad,

405
00:23:08,721 --> 00:23:11,857
and deciphering what it
means can really only happen

406
00:23:11,857 --> 00:23:14,559
within that particular
intersubjective space.

407
00:23:15,676 --> 00:23:17,362
So race is in the dyad.

408
00:23:17,496 --> 00:23:19,931
It is always present in the
room in some form or other.

409
00:23:20,166 --> 00:23:24,169
Yet, why do we struggle
so much to confront it?

410
00:23:24,436 --> 00:23:27,439
Why do we struggle so
much to talk about it?

411
00:23:28,507 --> 00:23:32,544
There is a powerful trend
towards avoidance of thinking

412
00:23:32,544 --> 00:23:35,514
and talking about race in
psychotherapeutic contexts.

413
00:23:36,014 --> 00:23:38,484
Kimberlyn Leary, who really
is one of the foremost writers

414
00:23:38,484 --> 00:23:42,321
within the relational
realm, describes race as

415
00:23:42,321 --> 00:23:45,624
one of the most vulnerable
of social discourses.

416
00:23:46,325 --> 00:23:47,826
She says that the most common

417
00:23:47,826 --> 00:23:51,230
enactment around race
is the relative silence

418
00:23:51,230 --> 00:23:54,333
in both clinical and
professional contexts,

419
00:23:55,902 --> 00:23:59,338
and I like her emphasis on
both clinical and professional

420
00:23:59,338 --> 00:24:02,741
because of course we can't
separate our consulting room

421
00:24:02,741 --> 00:24:05,911
from what happens within
our own profession,

422
00:24:06,378 --> 00:24:08,147
and there is a silence and there is

423
00:24:08,147 --> 00:24:10,295
a difficulty in talking about race.

424
00:24:10,295 --> 00:24:12,317
I certainly experience
that in my own country,

425
00:24:12,317 --> 00:24:16,422
and my experience is
also mirrored in some of

426
00:24:16,422 --> 00:24:21,422
the writing that I have read
within the U.S. context.

427
00:24:22,327 --> 00:24:27,327
Loya wrote two articles
in which she looked at

428
00:24:27,939 --> 00:24:30,902
the racial attitudes of
white social workers.

429
00:24:31,504 --> 00:24:33,005
In the first one, she looked at

430
00:24:33,005 --> 00:24:36,208
the color-blind attitudes
of these social workers,

431
00:24:36,208 --> 00:24:38,244
and then she looked at
the racial attitudes

432
00:24:38,874 --> 00:24:40,679
of these white social workers.

433
00:24:41,147 --> 00:24:43,782
She concluded something I find

434
00:24:43,782 --> 00:24:45,818
very, very telling and
very, very interesting,

435
00:24:45,818 --> 00:24:48,554
and this is research that's
been done in the last few years.

436
00:24:49,621 --> 00:24:52,224
She found that even
though cultural competency

437
00:24:52,977 --> 00:24:55,727
and cultural sensitivity are prerequisites

438
00:24:55,727 --> 00:24:58,130
in clinical social work training,

439
00:24:58,914 --> 00:25:03,914
many white social workers still
feel extremely uncomfortable

440
00:25:04,459 --> 00:25:08,940
when working with cross-culturally
diverse populations.

441
00:25:09,841 --> 00:25:12,074
In fact, the discomfort
is such that if they were

442
00:25:12,074 --> 00:25:15,881
given a choice not to,
they would choose that.

443
00:25:17,316 --> 00:25:19,718
She also found that white social workers

444
00:25:19,718 --> 00:25:22,020
tend to express a color blind stance.

445
00:25:22,321 --> 00:25:26,258
In other words, saying
that race is not important.

446
00:25:26,258 --> 00:25:27,793
In fact, race is not relevant,

447
00:25:27,893 --> 00:25:29,928
and often quoting the current

448
00:25:29,928 --> 00:25:32,130
state of affairs in the country and saying

449
00:25:32,130 --> 00:25:34,566
that race is no longer the
issue that it used to be.

450
00:25:34,601 --> 00:25:37,992
We no longer have to think about
it in the same kind of way.

451
00:25:38,592 --> 00:25:41,139
This notion of color blindness is one

452
00:25:41,139 --> 00:25:44,843
that is universally understood as being

453
00:25:44,843 --> 00:25:47,846
some kind of a form of racism, in fact,

454
00:25:47,846 --> 00:25:51,350
where an avoidance or a denial of race,

455
00:25:52,196 --> 00:25:54,019
an avoidance and a denial of the place

456
00:25:54,019 --> 00:25:58,190
of race in society is a form of racism.

457
00:25:59,980 --> 00:26:02,761
Just talking about that reminds me

458
00:26:02,761 --> 00:26:06,365
of an experience that I had,
once again at Smith College,

459
00:26:07,472 --> 00:26:11,370
one summer where I became
aware of the t-shirt

460
00:26:11,370 --> 00:26:14,539
that many of the students
walk around campus wearing.

461
00:26:15,374 --> 00:26:19,378
It's a t-shirt that expresses
the antiracism stance

462
00:26:19,378 --> 00:26:23,115
of the college, and it says
on the t-shirt, "I see color."

463
00:26:24,082 --> 00:26:27,401
It puts out in a very, very clear

464
00:26:27,401 --> 00:26:30,789
and unambiguous way that to avoid color,

465
00:26:31,496 --> 00:26:36,496
to avoid the reality of race
in our society is being blind,

466
00:26:38,831 --> 00:26:41,566
and that's something to consider,

467
00:26:41,694 --> 00:26:45,604
and I ask you to consider
it in terms of your own work

468
00:26:45,604 --> 00:26:48,040
and your own experience clinically.

469
00:26:50,442 --> 00:26:53,379
Why else might we be avoiding

470
00:26:53,379 --> 00:26:57,182
this incredibly prevalent issue?

471
00:26:57,949 --> 00:27:00,919
I think that there is
a denial of prejudice.

472
00:27:01,920 --> 00:27:03,822
I think that to acknowledge

473
00:27:03,822 --> 00:27:06,725
any kind of racially-based prejudice

474
00:27:07,432 --> 00:27:11,463
or any kind of racially-based
thinking is shameful.

475
00:27:12,164 --> 00:27:15,768
I think there is such an
imperative to disavow racism

476
00:27:15,768 --> 00:27:18,737
that that is easily and readily done

477
00:27:18,737 --> 00:27:21,473
even if it doesn't necessarily mirror

478
00:27:21,473 --> 00:27:23,975
what is happening at a
deeper, internal level.

479
00:27:24,877 --> 00:27:28,413
Derek Hook warns us against
the dangers of disavowal.

480
00:27:29,247 --> 00:27:31,183
He says that there is an interesting

481
00:27:31,183 --> 00:27:35,754
and a very common paradox
where racism is denied,

482
00:27:35,754 --> 00:27:38,823
but then it is coupled
with racist behavior.

483
00:27:39,091 --> 00:27:41,159
Of course, when I talk
about racist behavior,

484
00:27:41,159 --> 00:27:43,862
I'm not talking about overt racism

485
00:27:43,862 --> 00:27:47,093
in the kind of blatant, gross way.

486
00:27:47,093 --> 00:27:49,401
I'm talking about subtle forms of racism.

487
00:27:49,434 --> 00:27:51,336
I'm talking about microaggressions.

488
00:27:51,436 --> 00:27:53,972
I'm talking about the
way in which race becomes

489
00:27:53,972 --> 00:27:57,976
part of our thinking and
being without us realizing it.

490
00:27:58,410 --> 00:28:00,579
But because we have disavowed it,

491
00:28:00,579 --> 00:28:03,115
because I have said, "I'm not a racist.

492
00:28:03,115 --> 00:28:04,449
"I don't hold any prejudices.

493
00:28:04,449 --> 00:28:06,184
"I don't discriminate in any way,"

494
00:28:06,184 --> 00:28:10,722
I have let myself of the hook
in terms of acknowledging

495
00:28:10,722 --> 00:28:15,126
and taking onboard some of my
own racially-based behavior.

496
00:28:16,161 --> 00:28:19,898
When colleagues look at me
in confusion when I say this

497
00:28:19,898 --> 00:28:24,836
to them, I give the following
example, which is next.

498
00:28:26,672 --> 00:28:31,672
If you are asked to refer
a client to a therapist,

499
00:28:34,947 --> 00:28:37,749
how easily would you refer

500
00:28:38,050 --> 00:28:40,686
a person of color to a white therapist?

501
00:28:44,389 --> 00:28:47,559
I'm guessing that that
might happen quite easily.

502
00:28:47,726 --> 00:28:49,694
Certainly in my context it would.

503
00:28:51,764 --> 00:28:56,764
How would it be to refer a white person

504
00:28:57,909 --> 00:29:00,372
to a person of color for therapy?

505
00:29:02,508 --> 00:29:05,544
I'm guessing that that
might involve some thinking.

506
00:29:06,611 --> 00:29:08,380
Once again, certainly in my context,

507
00:29:09,149 --> 00:29:13,452
it is something that
clinicians grapple with.

508
00:29:14,453 --> 00:29:18,257
The stock response when I asked
some of my white colleagues

509
00:29:18,257 --> 00:29:20,826
whether they would do this, is to say,

510
00:29:21,595 --> 00:29:25,664
"Well, I would prefer to
refer a white person to

511
00:29:25,664 --> 00:29:29,534
"a white therapist because
there's more cultural resonance."

512
00:29:30,068 --> 00:29:32,637
My response is, "Well
then, why would it be okay

513
00:29:32,637 --> 00:29:36,308
"for a person of color to
go to a white therapist

514
00:29:36,308 --> 00:29:38,277
"if we are seeking cultural resonance?"

515
00:29:38,610 --> 00:29:43,610
It's that kind of clinical
or professional behavior

516
00:29:44,015 --> 00:29:47,686
that we need to begin to
think about and interrogate,

517
00:29:47,686 --> 00:29:51,022
and I don't suggest a
knee jerk reaction to it

518
00:29:51,745 --> 00:29:53,958
in terms of suddenly
doing things differently.

519
00:29:54,493 --> 00:29:59,493
I'm asking for a thoughtfulness
and a self reflection

520
00:29:59,698 --> 00:30:04,698
and to start to really
distill some of the thinking

521
00:30:04,803 --> 00:30:09,803
and some of the impulses which shape

522
00:30:09,941 --> 00:30:13,211
our professional and clinical conduct.

523
00:30:15,113 --> 00:30:18,817
Disavowing racism, disavowing prejudice

524
00:30:18,817 --> 00:30:22,187
also means that it becomes invisible.

525
00:30:25,419 --> 00:30:27,592
This might be considered as what

526
00:30:27,592 --> 00:30:30,729
Stein describes as an ignorance contract.

527
00:30:30,729 --> 00:30:32,397
I really like that term.

528
00:30:32,964 --> 00:30:36,858
She suggests that in
society, all of society

529
00:30:38,488 --> 00:30:42,207
tacitly engages in a
contract around ignorance.

530
00:30:43,074 --> 00:30:46,311
In other words, we might all agree

531
00:30:46,711 --> 00:30:49,281
or choose to agree that we no longer need

532
00:30:49,281 --> 00:30:51,783
to think about race in a particular way.

533
00:30:51,950 --> 00:30:53,485
We might all agree or choose to agree

534
00:30:53,485 --> 00:30:57,291
that race is no longer the
issue that it used to be and,

535
00:30:57,291 --> 00:31:00,692
in so doing, it means that we
don't have to interrogate it.

536
00:31:01,760 --> 00:31:03,428
Certainly coming from my country,

537
00:31:03,428 --> 00:31:06,698
that's a construct that resonates for me

538
00:31:06,698 --> 00:31:10,769
both amongst black people
and amongst white people

539
00:31:10,769 --> 00:31:13,538
where we are all very happy to agree

540
00:31:14,168 --> 00:31:16,975
that we are a rainbow
nation and that we have

541
00:31:16,975 --> 00:31:19,878
achieved integration through democracy,

542
00:31:19,878 --> 00:31:24,878
but if we begin to really
filter what's happening

543
00:31:26,085 --> 00:31:28,920
at the societal level,
it's very, very quick

544
00:31:28,920 --> 00:31:31,923
to see that that is not the case.

545
00:31:33,892 --> 00:31:36,428
What this ignorance contract does

546
00:31:36,428 --> 00:31:40,499
is it maintains entrenched
power dynamics in society,

547
00:31:40,499 --> 00:31:44,136
and I would argue that it
maintains those power dynamics

548
00:31:44,136 --> 00:31:47,105
within our profession as well,

549
00:31:49,474 --> 00:31:52,477
and that is something to really ponder on.

550
00:31:55,280 --> 00:31:58,948
What in ourselves are we avoiding?

551
00:31:58,948 --> 00:32:02,553
What in ourselves is
so hard to face up to?

552
00:32:03,770 --> 00:32:05,156
When thinking about this question,

553
00:32:05,802 --> 00:32:08,326
what comes to mind is Judith Herman's

554
00:32:08,326 --> 00:32:11,863
seminal text on trauma,
trauma and recovery.

555
00:32:12,430 --> 00:32:15,433
It really is one of the most insightful,

556
00:32:15,433 --> 00:32:17,436
if not the most insightful, book on trauma

557
00:32:17,436 --> 00:32:19,103
I think that has been written.

558
00:32:19,437 --> 00:32:22,474
She starts off the book by
talking a little bit about

559
00:32:22,474 --> 00:32:26,244
the history of trauma in the
world and mostly in America.

560
00:32:26,578 --> 00:32:29,114
She describes the history of trauma as

561
00:32:29,114 --> 00:32:32,417
one of episodic amnesia and what she says

562
00:32:32,417 --> 00:32:37,417
is that every time there was
a war which brought shellshock

563
00:32:38,323 --> 00:32:41,660
or battle fatigue or
gross stress reactions

564
00:32:41,660 --> 00:32:43,261
or posttraumatic stress disorder,

565
00:32:43,261 --> 00:32:45,063
however you might think about it,

566
00:32:45,063 --> 00:32:48,133
whenever those issues
were brought to the fore

567
00:32:48,133 --> 00:32:51,102
through a war, they were grappled with

568
00:32:51,102 --> 00:32:54,138
and thought about by
clinicians of the day.

569
00:32:54,472 --> 00:32:58,243
In 1918, Freud wrote his
Beyond the Pleasure Principle,

570
00:32:58,243 --> 00:33:01,246
highlighting the
posttraumatic stress disorder

571
00:33:01,246 --> 00:33:03,348
of World War I soldiers.

572
00:33:03,348 --> 00:33:08,348
In the 1940s, much was
written about the shellshock

573
00:33:08,353 --> 00:33:11,990
and the battle fatigue
of World War II soldiers.

574
00:33:13,359 --> 00:33:15,026
Then there was the Korean War.

575
00:33:16,480 --> 00:33:19,297
But between these wars, very
little was written about

576
00:33:19,297 --> 00:33:22,700
and very little was spoken
about in relation to trauma.

577
00:33:23,001 --> 00:33:26,071
It was really only with the
Vietnam War where there was

578
00:33:26,071 --> 00:33:29,274
a coming home of a massive population

579
00:33:29,274 --> 00:33:31,609
of profoundly traumatized veterans

580
00:33:32,485 --> 00:33:35,313
that it became impossible not to consider

581
00:33:35,313 --> 00:33:39,384
posttraumatic stress disorder
as a legitimate illness

582
00:33:39,817 --> 00:33:42,153
and something to be incorporated

583
00:33:42,153 --> 00:33:45,590
in our thinking at a clinical level.

584
00:33:46,091 --> 00:33:49,728
Herman says that the reason
for this episodic amnesia

585
00:33:49,728 --> 00:33:53,498
is because facing trauma,
working with trauma

586
00:33:53,498 --> 00:33:57,002
and dealing with trauma
means that we have to

587
00:33:57,002 --> 00:34:00,205
face the human potential
for destructiveness

588
00:34:00,205 --> 00:34:02,111
and the human potential for evil

589
00:34:03,080 --> 00:34:05,910
and we have to face the damage that

590
00:34:05,910 --> 00:34:08,714
as human beings we can do to one another.

591
00:34:09,432 --> 00:34:13,118
I would argue that part of our avoidance

592
00:34:13,118 --> 00:34:18,118
in clinical context around
looking at race is similar.

593
00:34:20,658 --> 00:34:24,062
Looking at race means
having to look at ourselves.

594
00:34:25,130 --> 00:34:29,868
We risk implicating ourselves
in a societal trauma,

595
00:34:30,283 --> 00:34:34,519
which is part of the societal
weave in which we live

596
00:34:34,519 --> 00:34:39,519
and that is painful and it's
hard and it's easier not to do,

597
00:34:41,213 --> 00:34:45,983
but it is imperative; it is necessary.

598
00:34:46,651 --> 00:34:48,555
Looking at race means having

599
00:34:48,555 --> 00:34:50,956
to acknowledge what may appear in the room

600
00:34:52,449 --> 00:34:54,960
and this is extremely uncomfortable.

601
00:34:54,960 --> 00:34:57,763
It's inconvenient and
it's very distressing.

602
00:34:58,730 --> 00:35:03,035
If I reflect honestly back on
my years of clinical practice,

603
00:35:03,835 --> 00:35:08,673
I am readily able to recall
particular interactions

604
00:35:08,673 --> 00:35:10,708
and particular cases where I have

605
00:35:10,708 --> 00:35:14,555
turned away from the very powerfully

606
00:35:14,555 --> 00:35:17,616
racially-imbued dynamics in the room.

607
00:35:18,951 --> 00:35:21,619
If I think about why I did that,

608
00:35:21,626 --> 00:35:24,589
if I think about what was
happening for me in the room

609
00:35:24,589 --> 00:35:27,125
at the time and in that
particular relationship,

610
00:35:27,325 --> 00:35:32,325
I'm acutely aware of the
discomfort that I felt.

611
00:35:33,832 --> 00:35:37,502
In particular, my discomfort
around my whiteness

612
00:35:37,836 --> 00:35:42,836
and my position within
my societal context.

613
00:35:43,975 --> 00:35:48,975
I recall the physiological
discomfort, the racing heart,

614
00:35:50,849 --> 00:35:54,619
the internal anxiety which
accompanied any thinking

615
00:35:54,619 --> 00:35:59,619
that I might introduce around
that material, and so I recall

616
00:36:00,825 --> 00:36:04,129
how much easier it was
to turn away from that.

617
00:36:05,330 --> 00:36:06,865
I want to talk a little bit later on

618
00:36:06,865 --> 00:36:09,067
about how to challenge ourselves

619
00:36:09,067 --> 00:36:13,037
in those kinds of
experiences and contexts.

620
00:36:14,339 --> 00:36:18,676
Moss suggests that in order
to really grapple with issues

621
00:36:18,676 --> 00:36:21,480
of race and racism,
prejudice and discrimination,

622
00:36:21,613 --> 00:36:25,283
we must take ourselves
as object of scrutiny.

623
00:36:25,751 --> 00:36:29,654
We must examine our own prejudiced selves.

624
00:36:30,088 --> 00:36:34,592
I think that one of the things
that I have found is that

625
00:36:34,592 --> 00:36:39,592
if we can do that without
sinking into shame or into guilt,

626
00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:44,482
it can be enormously constructive.

627
00:36:44,482 --> 00:36:47,071
In other words, I do worry at times

628
00:36:47,071 --> 00:36:49,307
that the kind of obsequious guilt,

629
00:36:49,307 --> 00:36:51,609
and that is a direct quote from Lousada,

630
00:36:51,609 --> 00:36:54,512
the kind of obsequious
guilt that white clinicians

631
00:36:54,512 --> 00:36:58,950
and white people feel
clouds the issue that

632
00:36:58,950 --> 00:37:03,950
in a way we need to not
use guilt as a buffer.

633
00:37:05,089 --> 00:37:07,959
We need to somehow be able
to interrogate ourselves

634
00:37:07,959 --> 00:37:12,959
far more clearly and far more visibly

635
00:37:13,131 --> 00:37:16,267
in terms of our own prejudiced selves.

636
00:37:18,305 --> 00:37:20,005
This means looking at our deep-seated

637
00:37:20,005 --> 00:37:22,488
and often unconscious prejudice.

638
00:37:26,805 --> 00:37:28,680
If we think about unconscious prejudice,

639
00:37:30,327 --> 00:37:31,727
what do I mean by that?

640
00:37:32,183 --> 00:37:36,921
Am I suggesting that we all
hold unconscious prejudice?

641
00:37:37,522 --> 00:37:39,424
Am I suggesting that in fact there may be

642
00:37:39,424 --> 00:37:42,193
developmental origins of prejudice?

643
00:37:43,027 --> 00:37:44,295
I want to look a little bit

644
00:37:44,295 --> 00:37:47,265
at some of the current
thinking around that.

645
00:37:48,333 --> 00:37:52,431
There is strong agreement
amongst developmental writers

646
00:37:53,200 --> 00:37:58,200
that all of us hold within us
a human imperative to other,

647
00:37:59,344 --> 00:38:02,847
to separate self from other along

648
00:38:02,847 --> 00:38:07,847
various lines of identity,
of characteristic.

649
00:38:08,486 --> 00:38:12,090
People like Peter Fonagy,
Gil Straker, Neil Altman

650
00:38:12,090 --> 00:38:15,026
suggest that prejudice is ubiquitous.

651
00:38:15,194 --> 00:38:19,631
Prejudice based on a number
of factors is ubiquitous

652
00:38:19,631 --> 00:38:22,433
and is at work in all of our interactions.

653
00:38:23,234 --> 00:38:26,504
They suggest that the
tendency to discriminate

654
00:38:26,504 --> 00:38:30,308
is an evolutionary and
a psychic compulsion

655
00:38:30,308 --> 00:38:33,377
which is shaped in very,
very early development.

656
00:38:33,644 --> 00:38:35,947
In fact, we can go as far back as Freud.

657
00:38:36,577 --> 00:38:38,182
In fact, I'm sure that
there are many people

658
00:38:38,182 --> 00:38:40,351
who came before Freud, but yeah.

659
00:38:40,785 --> 00:38:44,055
Freud for us, certainly
for me, is a seminal writer

660
00:38:44,055 --> 00:38:47,558
and he described the
concept of the group ideal

661
00:38:48,293 --> 00:38:51,062
and he described the
notion of stereotyping

662
00:38:51,062 --> 00:38:54,766
and categorization as a universal

663
00:38:54,766 --> 00:38:58,936
and pervasive human
tendency with the objective

664
00:38:58,936 --> 00:39:01,839
of preserving the group
to which one belongs.

665
00:39:02,373 --> 00:39:05,577
We really do go back to
quite primitive functioning

666
00:39:06,423 --> 00:39:09,680
in this aspect, where in order to survive,

667
00:39:10,048 --> 00:39:15,048
in order to preserve our
integrity as a homogenous group,

668
00:39:17,121 --> 00:39:22,121
we have this tendency to
stereotype into other groups

669
00:39:22,360 --> 00:39:24,962
which are dissimilar to our own.

670
00:39:26,981 --> 00:39:29,667
Freud suggested that
we classify and respond

671
00:39:29,667 --> 00:39:34,338
to ourselves and others along
lines forged by identity.

672
00:39:35,573 --> 00:39:40,044
These lines are characterized
in terms of race,

673
00:39:40,044 --> 00:39:45,044
gender, sexual orientation, for example,

674
00:39:45,283 --> 00:39:49,587
and we do this mostly unconsciously.

675
00:39:50,722 --> 00:39:54,759
Smith also suggests that
there is a universality

676
00:39:54,759 --> 00:39:58,329
in the need to create boundaries
between self and other

677
00:39:58,329 --> 00:40:02,567
both internally and externally,
and says the following,

678
00:40:02,567 --> 00:40:05,336
and this is a direct quote from Smith,

679
00:40:06,904 --> 00:40:09,540
"It is around difference and otherness,

680
00:40:09,774 --> 00:40:12,844
"be it real or imagined, that our earliest

681
00:40:12,844 --> 00:40:15,213
"and most primitive defenses gather

682
00:40:15,213 --> 00:40:18,449
"to split our objects into them and us,

683
00:40:18,783 --> 00:40:23,783
"the feared and the safe,
the loved and the hated,

684
00:40:24,322 --> 00:40:27,425
"the privileged and the excluded,

685
00:40:27,925 --> 00:40:32,925
"the envied and the
denigrated, the different."

686
00:40:37,765 --> 00:40:42,765
This notion of splitting is
a strongly Kleinian notion,

687
00:40:44,809 --> 00:40:47,745
and Fakhry Davids, who
is a South African-born

688
00:40:47,745 --> 00:40:52,717
British psychoanalyst,
has also written about

689
00:40:52,717 --> 00:40:55,686
the imperative that we have to split.

690
00:40:56,621 --> 00:40:58,923
He suggests that we have an instinctive

691
00:40:58,923 --> 00:41:01,892
and an evolutionary urge to other

692
00:41:01,993 --> 00:41:05,062
in order to manage intolerable anxiety.

693
00:41:06,397 --> 00:41:09,867
He goes one step further
to say that this means

694
00:41:09,867 --> 00:41:13,704
that the relationship
between self and racial other

695
00:41:13,704 --> 00:41:17,942
exists universally as an
aspect of the internal world.

696
00:41:18,810 --> 00:41:23,810
He says quite controversially
that within our internal world

697
00:41:25,149 --> 00:41:30,149
there is a stable, non-pathological
racist organization.

698
00:41:31,222 --> 00:41:34,492
In other words, he suggests
that within our internal worlds

699
00:41:34,492 --> 00:41:39,463
there is a racially-based
structure, which is ever ready

700
00:41:39,463 --> 00:41:44,068
to hold the intolerable
anxiety that comes from

701
00:41:44,068 --> 00:41:49,068
having to deal with a threat
of the racially-based other.

702
00:41:50,775 --> 00:41:52,743
I think that there are obviously

703
00:41:52,743 --> 00:41:56,681
strong criticisms to
Davids' particular theory.

704
00:41:57,415 --> 00:42:00,752
I know that in our degree
that there are many people

705
00:42:00,752 --> 00:42:04,121
who suggest that to name
this as a specifically

706
00:42:04,121 --> 00:42:09,121
racially-based structure is
perhaps a little too specific,

707
00:42:09,760 --> 00:42:12,297
but certainly there would be agreement

708
00:42:12,297 --> 00:42:15,332
that within ourselves we have structures

709
00:42:15,833 --> 00:42:19,036
that allow for the
splitting off of otherness,

710
00:42:19,636 --> 00:42:21,505
whatever form that may take,

711
00:42:21,505 --> 00:42:24,509
whether it is about
race or class or gender

712
00:42:24,509 --> 00:42:28,818
or sexual orientation or
age or whatever it might be,

713
00:42:28,818 --> 00:42:30,948
that internally we have
structures that will

714
00:42:30,948 --> 00:42:34,218
readily hold that, and that
that is not pathological.

715
00:42:34,218 --> 00:42:38,489
In other words, it is
universal for each one of us.

716
00:42:40,033 --> 00:42:42,660
Davids suggests that there
is a developmental process

717
00:42:42,660 --> 00:42:44,695
which leads to this creation of

718
00:42:44,695 --> 00:42:47,064
a specifically racist organization

719
00:42:47,802 --> 00:42:50,534
which is ever ready to be mobilized.

720
00:42:51,517 --> 00:42:55,707
What he's suggesting there is
that perhaps most of the time,

721
00:42:55,707 --> 00:42:57,775
as we make our way through life,

722
00:42:57,775 --> 00:43:02,212
we can behave in racially impartial ways.

723
00:43:02,580 --> 00:43:07,518
We can behave in socially
normative and civilized ways

724
00:43:07,518 --> 00:43:10,821
when it comes to managing self and other,

725
00:43:10,821 --> 00:43:12,723
but when faced with a threat,

726
00:43:14,138 --> 00:43:18,696
when faced with any kind of
tension around self and other,

727
00:43:18,896 --> 00:43:20,565
that racially-based organization

728
00:43:20,565 --> 00:43:24,301
is going to rear its head
and come to the fore.

729
00:43:25,740 --> 00:43:27,538
In some ways this makes sense to me,

730
00:43:27,538 --> 00:43:30,975
certainly in terms of my work in trauma,

731
00:43:31,509 --> 00:43:35,346
and perhaps you've had some
experience of this for yourself,

732
00:43:35,613 --> 00:43:40,613
that when an interpersonal
trauma has occurred,

733
00:43:41,919 --> 00:43:44,655
a criminal trauma has occurred, such as,

734
00:43:44,655 --> 00:43:47,825
we'll give an example, a hijacking,

735
00:43:47,825 --> 00:43:49,560
which has been violent and aggressive

736
00:43:49,560 --> 00:43:52,496
and incredibly intrusive and powerful,

737
00:43:53,334 --> 00:43:56,401
it is very, very easy
for the client to resort

738
00:43:56,401 --> 00:44:00,404
to racist explanations for the
behavior of the perpetrator.

739
00:44:01,273 --> 00:44:05,343
I've had a number of experiences where

740
00:44:05,343 --> 00:44:09,180
a client might say to me, "I'm
really not racist, but ..."

741
00:44:09,180 --> 00:44:12,583
Or, "I'm surprised by my racially-based

742
00:44:12,583 --> 00:44:14,418
"response to this experience,"

743
00:44:14,418 --> 00:44:17,497
or, "I'm taken aback by how racist I feel.

744
00:44:17,497 --> 00:44:19,390
"This is not who I thought I was."

745
00:44:19,857 --> 00:44:23,628
What's happened in that
experience is that really,

746
00:44:23,628 --> 00:44:25,563
driven to the bare bones of trying to

747
00:44:25,563 --> 00:44:27,564
survive an interpersonal attack,

748
00:44:27,932 --> 00:44:32,003
the psyche has mobilized an
internal structure which then

749
00:44:32,003 --> 00:44:36,974
becomes the recipient for this
othering on a racial basis.

750
00:44:38,629 --> 00:44:42,146
Davids suggests that there is
this internal structure which,

751
00:44:42,146 --> 00:44:44,648
because we need it as a hold all

752
00:44:44,648 --> 00:44:47,052
for anxiety around the other,

753
00:44:47,775 --> 00:44:51,922
is stubborn and resilient and
enormously hard to counter.

754
00:44:52,290 --> 00:44:56,527
It's enormously hard to
grasp in order to counter.

755
00:44:58,396 --> 00:45:00,498
Moving a little bit away from Davids

756
00:45:00,498 --> 00:45:02,766
and his Kleinian explanation,

757
00:45:02,767 --> 00:45:04,402
I want to move on to Peter Fonagy,

758
00:45:04,402 --> 00:45:06,237
who is an attachment theorist,

759
00:45:06,237 --> 00:45:09,912
and he offers what I find to be certainly

760
00:45:09,912 --> 00:45:14,078
a very compelling explanation
for the ubiquity of prejudice.

761
00:45:15,312 --> 00:45:18,549
He suggests that prejudice is
part of the human condition

762
00:45:18,549 --> 00:45:22,186
and that our tendency to
other is an adaptive one.

763
00:45:23,320 --> 00:45:27,091
He suggests that what he
called normal prejudice

764
00:45:27,091 --> 00:45:30,594
arises from early attachment to contexts,

765
00:45:30,594 --> 00:45:32,430
and he differentiates this from

766
00:45:32,430 --> 00:45:35,433
more malignant egosyntonic prejudice,

767
00:45:35,433 --> 00:45:37,568
which is more in the psychopathic spectrum

768
00:45:37,568 --> 00:45:39,337
and I'm not talking about that.

769
00:45:39,337 --> 00:45:42,640
I'm just talking about the
ordinary person, you and me.

770
00:45:43,332 --> 00:45:47,445
I'm talking about what Fonagy
describes as normal prejudice,

771
00:45:47,445 --> 00:45:52,015
which might seem contradictory,
but there we are.

772
00:45:53,164 --> 00:45:55,753
He grounds his theory of prejudice within

773
00:45:55,753 --> 00:45:58,922
the context of secure
versus insecure attachment.

774
00:46:00,157 --> 00:46:04,328
He suggests that ordinary
prejudice arises from

775
00:46:04,328 --> 00:46:07,065
the early experiences which happen

776
00:46:07,065 --> 00:46:10,734
outside of the immediate
attachment environment,

777
00:46:10,734 --> 00:46:14,805
which then activate an insecure model.

778
00:46:16,173 --> 00:46:19,944
He's saying that in context
where caregivers are

779
00:46:19,944 --> 00:46:23,781
mostly able to provide a
secure attachment environment,

780
00:46:24,996 --> 00:46:27,351
when they step out of that immediate

781
00:46:27,351 --> 00:46:32,351
domestic milieu into the external context,

782
00:46:34,159 --> 00:46:37,141
they may encounter
interpersonal situations

783
00:46:37,141 --> 00:46:39,964
which create anxiety within the caregiver.

784
00:46:40,231 --> 00:46:45,231
This anxiety is then communicated
to the receptive infant,

785
00:46:46,400 --> 00:46:49,006
creating an insecure working model,

786
00:46:49,006 --> 00:46:53,077
which is directly linked
to that particular

787
00:46:53,077 --> 00:46:56,680
interpersonal situation
in the environment.

788
00:46:58,148 --> 00:47:01,518
Now, if I step back, and I
would ask you to do the same,

789
00:47:01,852 --> 00:47:06,123
and I consider the kind
of external context

790
00:47:06,123 --> 00:47:11,123
into which I was born,
and if I consider that

791
00:47:12,029 --> 00:47:15,900
I may well have grown up within a context

792
00:47:15,900 --> 00:47:18,803
of secure attachment within
the environs of my home,

793
00:47:19,704 --> 00:47:22,139
but that when myself and my parents

794
00:47:22,139 --> 00:47:24,975
stepped out of that environment,

795
00:47:24,975 --> 00:47:29,975
we stepped into a world where othering

796
00:47:31,117 --> 00:47:33,517
was part of the social fabric of life,

797
00:47:34,118 --> 00:47:37,922
where encountering the
racially based other

798
00:47:37,922 --> 00:47:42,922
would have been an experience of anxiety,

799
00:47:42,927 --> 00:47:46,230
perhaps even an experience of threat,

800
00:47:47,231 --> 00:47:51,468
and how through the
unconscious communications

801
00:47:51,468 --> 00:47:54,371
from my parents I must surely

802
00:47:55,140 --> 00:47:57,575
have internalized some of that anxiety.

803
00:47:58,042 --> 00:48:02,513
That's what Fonagy is
saying, that moving from

804
00:48:02,513 --> 00:48:06,951
the immediate context into
the external environment,

805
00:48:08,320 --> 00:48:11,255
the attachment system
becomes the messenger

806
00:48:11,255 --> 00:48:14,691
for what is happening in
that societal context.

807
00:48:15,593 --> 00:48:17,995
By nature, part of what happens within

808
00:48:17,995 --> 00:48:22,099
that societal context is
going to be about othering

809
00:48:23,033 --> 00:48:25,669
and that is going to be internalized.

810
00:48:25,936 --> 00:48:30,475
That means that early
identifications begin to

811
00:48:30,475 --> 00:48:35,475
be organized around us and
them, along lines of othering.

812
00:48:36,246 --> 00:48:41,085
These early identifications
are used to regulate

813
00:48:41,085 --> 00:48:45,423
an internal equilibrium in
order to restore a secure base.

814
00:48:45,423 --> 00:48:48,059
In other words, using splitting,

815
00:48:48,766 --> 00:48:52,529
us and them, threatening, non-threatening,

816
00:48:54,365 --> 00:48:58,536
splitting then becomes a
way of restoring equilibrium

817
00:48:59,036 --> 00:49:03,573
and that becomes entrenched
in the unconscious.

818
00:49:04,942 --> 00:49:07,879
In order to heighten the
sense of identification

819
00:49:10,494 --> 00:49:15,152
with a particular group,
characteristics belonging

820
00:49:15,152 --> 00:49:18,656
to the self tends to be homogenized

821
00:49:20,097 --> 00:49:22,326
and characteristics
belonging to the other,

822
00:49:22,893 --> 00:49:26,730
which are different to the
self, become exaggerated.

823
00:49:27,398 --> 00:49:30,835
What happens then is
that rather than seeing

824
00:49:30,835 --> 00:49:34,672
the resonance of a
likeness between ourselves

825
00:49:34,672 --> 00:49:39,672
and the racially-based other,
we see only the differences,

826
00:49:40,478 --> 00:49:43,714
and those differences are
highlighted in order to

827
00:49:43,714 --> 00:49:47,284
maintain some sense of internal security.

828
00:49:48,419 --> 00:49:51,155
One of the consequences of
this is that the racial other

829
00:49:51,155 --> 00:49:54,491
becomes seen as wholly
different and as alien.

830
00:49:54,792 --> 00:49:58,195
Once again, coming from
the context of apartheid,

831
00:49:58,195 --> 00:50:02,199
where the population of the country

832
00:50:02,199 --> 00:50:06,470
was kept apart, it was so easy.

833
00:50:07,104 --> 00:50:10,941
It was such an invitation for black people

834
00:50:10,941 --> 00:50:15,941
and for white people to build
assumptions about each other

835
00:50:16,847 --> 00:50:19,316
that were not based on any kind

836
00:50:19,316 --> 00:50:21,785
of real interaction between the two,

837
00:50:22,219 --> 00:50:25,556
but based on a need to
keep the separateness

838
00:50:25,556 --> 00:50:28,925
in order to minimize
the threat of the other.

839
00:50:29,626 --> 00:50:33,931
For black people,
whiteness was frightening

840
00:50:33,931 --> 00:50:38,068
and anxiety-provoking, and
for white people blackness

841
00:50:38,068 --> 00:50:40,837
was frightening and anxiety-provoking,

842
00:50:41,338 --> 00:50:44,441
and so internal representations
and identifications

843
00:50:44,441 --> 00:50:47,945
became grouped along
those lines of identity.

844
00:50:48,780 --> 00:50:50,781
I wonder in your context whether

845
00:50:50,781 --> 00:50:53,884
you are able to relate to that at all.

846
00:50:54,952 --> 00:50:58,589
Fonagy says that prejudice
then is a function

847
00:50:58,589 --> 00:51:02,626
of normal neuro-cognitive
social functioning,

848
00:51:03,913 --> 00:51:08,913
and this is strengthened during
early attachment systems.

849
00:51:12,404 --> 00:51:15,706
It's quite challenging
to have to consider this.

850
00:51:18,142 --> 00:51:20,711
It's quite challenging
to have to think about

851
00:51:20,711 --> 00:51:23,580
what this means in terms of our own

852
00:51:23,580 --> 00:51:28,580
internally constructed
identification systems.

853
00:51:30,588 --> 00:51:32,456
Fonagy suggests that a consequence

854
00:51:32,456 --> 00:51:35,893
of these early identifications is that

855
00:51:35,893 --> 00:51:38,729
attachments throughout life then become

856
00:51:38,729 --> 00:51:41,832
more easily created amongst individuals

857
00:51:41,832 --> 00:51:45,302
who share our characteristics of identity,

858
00:51:45,302 --> 00:51:47,271
and of course we see this all of the time

859
00:51:47,271 --> 00:51:52,271
that for many people it is far
easier to gravitate towards

860
00:51:52,676 --> 00:51:56,380
people who seem obviously like ourselves

861
00:51:57,872 --> 00:52:02,419
rather than to actively seek
out the company of those

862
00:52:02,419 --> 00:52:07,390
who are different to
us along so many lines.

863
00:52:08,659 --> 00:52:11,562
In fact, there are some
neuro-cognitive studies

864
00:52:11,562 --> 00:52:14,824
that show that it is easier to mentalize

865
00:52:15,762 --> 00:52:19,737
when in the company of those similar to us

866
00:52:21,090 --> 00:52:23,140
than when in the company
of those who are different.

867
00:52:23,140 --> 00:52:24,908
I want to just unpack that a little bit.

868
00:52:25,409 --> 00:52:30,409
Mentalization is the capacity
to attribute mental phenomena

869
00:52:30,848 --> 00:52:34,022
such as intentions and desires and beliefs

870
00:52:34,618 --> 00:52:37,188
about the internal worlds of others.

871
00:52:37,988 --> 00:52:40,624
Mentalization is about
being able to make sense

872
00:52:40,624 --> 00:52:44,161
of the complexity of the
internal world of the other.

873
00:52:44,295 --> 00:52:46,833
These neuro-cognitive studies suggest that

874
00:52:46,833 --> 00:52:51,602
being able to mentalize
across sameness is quite easy.

875
00:52:53,204 --> 00:52:54,538
Being able to mentalize across

876
00:52:54,538 --> 00:52:57,041
difference becomes more difficult.

877
00:52:58,009 --> 00:53:00,911
What we tend to do, and
there was a particular study

878
00:53:00,911 --> 00:53:03,447
which looked at different ethnicities,

879
00:53:03,447 --> 00:53:06,317
what we tend to do unconsciously

880
00:53:06,317 --> 00:53:09,720
when faced with difference
is to mechanize,

881
00:53:10,855 --> 00:53:14,792
which means to resort to
previously held stereotypes,

882
00:53:14,792 --> 00:53:18,195
rather than to mentalize.

883
00:53:18,829 --> 00:53:21,565
I'm reminded here of
a particular vignette,

884
00:53:22,641 --> 00:53:27,071
a clinical vignette of mine,
where a white male client

885
00:53:27,071 --> 00:53:31,842
was talking about a recent trip
that he had taken overseas.

886
00:53:32,043 --> 00:53:35,279
He was talking about being in Europe

887
00:53:35,279 --> 00:53:38,382
and saying that he had been
going up an escalator somewhere

888
00:53:38,382 --> 00:53:41,485
and he had bumped into a South African.

889
00:53:41,585 --> 00:53:43,154
He had recognized the accent.

890
00:53:43,520 --> 00:53:46,524
He said that as soon
as he saw this person,

891
00:53:46,524 --> 00:53:48,959
in the first few moments
of speaking to them,

892
00:53:48,959 --> 00:53:53,030
he was able to guess where they came from,

893
00:53:53,030 --> 00:53:55,065
what school they might have gone to,

894
00:53:55,065 --> 00:53:58,202
what their particular
socioeconomic class was,

895
00:53:58,202 --> 00:54:00,404
and he was able to extrapolate a whole lot

896
00:54:00,404 --> 00:54:03,340
of fairly accurate things about them

897
00:54:03,340 --> 00:54:05,175
and about their internal worlds.

898
00:54:05,728 --> 00:54:07,945
Then he paused and he said to me,

899
00:54:09,606 --> 00:54:11,815
"I can do that when I
run into South Africans,

900
00:54:11,815 --> 00:54:13,818
"but only white South Africans.

901
00:54:14,084 --> 00:54:17,387
"If I run into a black person, I'm lost."

902
00:54:18,222 --> 00:54:23,222
I felt that that was such
a clear expression of how,

903
00:54:23,327 --> 00:54:28,327
when faced with difference,
it's possible to feel blind,

904
00:54:28,933 --> 00:54:31,735
and then what do we do in
order to fill the gaps?

905
00:54:32,002 --> 00:54:35,639
We resort to mechanization and we resort

906
00:54:35,639 --> 00:54:38,909
to attributional behavior
based on physical descriptors

907
00:54:40,247 --> 00:54:42,114
rather than anything that we might

908
00:54:42,114 --> 00:54:45,148
actually know about this person.

909
00:54:45,983 --> 00:54:49,386
Normal prejudice then involves

910
00:54:50,124 --> 00:54:53,857
the temporary relinquishing
of mentalization.

911
00:54:55,826 --> 00:54:57,060
Once again, these are really

912
00:54:57,060 --> 00:55:00,230
uncomfortable thoughts
to have to consider,

913
00:55:00,230 --> 00:55:02,866
to have to consider
our inherent prejudice,

914
00:55:03,500 --> 00:55:06,537
but the discomfort of
that thought I would hope

915
00:55:06,537 --> 00:55:10,340
would be a motivation to consciously look

916
00:55:10,340 --> 00:55:14,044
at the implications of
that and to work at it.

917
00:55:16,707 --> 00:55:19,250
Part of the discomfort of
the thought is having to

918
00:55:19,250 --> 00:55:23,821
hold in mind how the way
in which we see ourselves

919
00:55:24,882 --> 00:55:27,457
as unprejudiced beings might be different

920
00:55:27,457 --> 00:55:30,361
to the way in which we actually are.

921
00:55:31,328 --> 00:55:34,164
An example of this came up in an article

922
00:55:34,164 --> 00:55:37,234
that I read recently written by a man

923
00:55:37,234 --> 00:55:39,370
who is part of the Human Rights Commission

924
00:55:39,370 --> 00:55:42,372
and he was describing a
lecture that he had given

925
00:55:42,372 --> 00:55:45,608
to a group of graduate
students about human rights.

926
00:55:46,377 --> 00:55:47,711
He said it was very, very interesting

927
00:55:47,711 --> 00:55:51,282
because he was asking about what the class

928
00:55:51,282 --> 00:55:55,419
thought about general human rights,

929
00:55:55,586 --> 00:55:59,356
basic human rights and
basic human equality

930
00:55:59,356 --> 00:56:03,760
based on race, class, sexual
orientation, et cetera.

931
00:56:03,994 --> 00:56:06,863
Unanimously, this group
of graduate students said

932
00:56:06,863 --> 00:56:10,134
that those should be
constitutionally held rights,

933
00:56:10,134 --> 00:56:12,002
that there should be equality for all,

934
00:56:12,002 --> 00:56:14,071
that there should be
absolutely no discrimination

935
00:56:14,071 --> 00:56:16,140
based on any line of identity.

936
00:56:17,007 --> 00:56:18,809
He then posed them a question.

937
00:56:19,577 --> 00:56:23,280
He said, "What do you
think and what do you feel

938
00:56:24,156 --> 00:56:27,150
"about two gay men adopting a child?"

939
00:56:28,318 --> 00:56:31,054
He said that the responses
were very telling,

940
00:56:32,089 --> 00:56:34,625
that a number of people
in the class were able to

941
00:56:34,625 --> 00:56:37,861
acknowledge that they
felt discomfort with that,

942
00:56:38,662 --> 00:56:40,564
that they thought that
it wouldn't be normative,

943
00:56:40,997 --> 00:56:42,366
that they felt that a child should

944
00:56:42,366 --> 00:56:44,768
be raised by a mother and father,

945
00:56:45,875 --> 00:56:48,697
that there was something more important

946
00:56:48,697 --> 00:56:51,841
about heteronormativity
when raising a child.

947
00:56:53,585 --> 00:56:56,113
He goes on to say how interesting it was

948
00:56:56,113 --> 00:56:59,516
to see the discrepancy between the views

949
00:56:59,516 --> 00:57:04,154
that this class say that they held versus

950
00:57:04,154 --> 00:57:07,191
the views that they actually held

951
00:57:07,191 --> 00:57:10,594
when asked to contemplate
a real situation.

952
00:57:11,128 --> 00:57:14,965
I think that that is a
challenge that we all have,

953
00:57:16,032 --> 00:57:19,169
and that's for many of us,
and I would assume that

954
00:57:19,169 --> 00:57:20,540
if you are listening to
this lecture you would

955
00:57:20,540 --> 00:57:25,540
fall into this category
that we need to believe

956
00:57:26,110 --> 00:57:30,548
that we are able to
hold in mind difference

957
00:57:30,548 --> 00:57:35,085
in an unprejudiced way and
to consider that that might

958
00:57:35,085 --> 00:57:40,085
not be a core belief for us
is extremely challenging.

959
00:57:45,362 --> 00:57:50,362
The implications of this
within the clinical sphere

960
00:57:50,501 --> 00:57:54,104
are absolutely pivotal and that is a point

961
00:57:54,104 --> 00:57:58,208
that I would like to
emphasize in this lecture.

962
00:57:59,142 --> 00:58:02,546
The potential for the
increase of mentalization,

963
00:58:03,715 --> 00:58:06,117
the potential for bringing into the room

964
00:58:06,117 --> 00:58:09,320
our own prejudiced subjectivity

965
00:58:10,654 --> 00:58:15,091
is enormously significant
for the clinical space,

966
00:58:16,693 --> 00:58:19,894
particularly when there are
clear differences of identity

967
00:58:19,894 --> 00:58:22,732
such as race within the clinical dyad.

968
00:58:23,867 --> 00:58:28,071
Working across difference is hard work

969
00:58:28,772 --> 00:58:31,975
and that is something that
needs to be acknowledged.

970
00:58:32,143 --> 00:58:36,480
Having considered some of
the developmental foundations

971
00:58:36,480 --> 00:58:40,484
or possibilities around the
developmental prejudice,

972
00:58:40,484 --> 00:58:44,588
I'd like to branch off just
a little bit to suggest

973
00:58:44,588 --> 00:58:47,958
that we may well also need to consider

974
00:58:47,958 --> 00:58:50,932
a neurobiological substrate to prejudice.

975
00:58:50,932 --> 00:58:53,029
This is something that
I have written about

976
00:58:53,029 --> 00:58:54,965
and something that I'm interested in.

977
00:58:55,332 --> 00:58:58,335
If we consider the way in
which early attachments

978
00:58:58,335 --> 00:59:03,335
impact on brain functioning,
then we have to also consider

979
00:59:05,409 --> 00:59:10,409
the possibility that the
neurobiology of the brain can also

980
00:59:11,415 --> 00:59:16,415
hold messages that are related
to prejudice and othering.

981
00:59:17,421 --> 00:59:20,957
If we consider that in the
first few months of life

982
00:59:21,524 --> 00:59:24,094
it is the right brain which develops,

983
00:59:24,461 --> 00:59:29,199
and within this right
brain implicit templates

984
00:59:30,199 --> 00:59:33,237
around the workings of the interpersonal

985
00:59:33,237 --> 00:59:36,740
and the social world
begin to be laid down,

986
00:59:37,107 --> 00:59:39,376
and so these templates or these blueprints

987
00:59:39,376 --> 00:59:42,980
become the map, as it
were, for the way in which

988
00:59:42,980 --> 00:59:46,249
the social world is
understood and negotiated.

989
00:59:46,583 --> 00:59:50,553
If we think about the unconscious messages

990
00:59:50,553 --> 00:59:53,256
and communications given
to us by our caregivers,

991
00:59:53,256 --> 00:59:57,361
and if we think about how
these may begin to describe

992
00:59:57,361 --> 00:59:59,696
the internal working models which are

993
00:59:59,696 --> 01:00:01,965
part of the right brain functioning,

994
01:00:01,965 --> 01:00:06,203
then we can consider that messages

995
01:00:06,203 --> 01:00:08,972
around prejudice and around othering

996
01:00:08,972 --> 01:00:13,510
become part of our
neurobiological substrate.

997
01:00:14,485 --> 01:00:17,914
Bonnie Badenoch writes
about the way in which

998
01:00:17,914 --> 01:00:21,218
social relationships become
part of that substrate.

999
01:00:21,886 --> 01:00:25,622
She says that part of what
develops in early attachment

1000
01:00:25,622 --> 01:00:30,560
is a sense of the way things
are in the social world.

1001
01:00:31,161 --> 01:00:36,161
The way things are is what
we learn to just assume

1002
01:00:39,069 --> 01:00:41,905
and just accept about the
world of interpersonal

1003
01:00:41,905 --> 01:00:46,543
and social relating and
we comport ourselves

1004
01:00:46,543 --> 01:00:51,514
along those lines of the way
things are as we grow up.

1005
01:00:51,748 --> 01:00:56,748
It's only if we foreground
with conscious intent

1006
01:00:57,454 --> 01:01:00,957
what these templates might be that we are

1007
01:01:00,957 --> 01:01:03,294
then able to look at
them and to consider them

1008
01:01:03,294 --> 01:01:06,063
more consciously and more thoughtfully.

1009
01:01:08,805 --> 01:01:11,234
I have looked at some of the

1010
01:01:11,234 --> 01:01:13,370
developmental origins of prejudice.

1011
01:01:13,871 --> 01:01:17,507
I've considered why it might
be incredibly difficult

1012
01:01:18,553 --> 01:01:20,644
to look at this within ourselves

1013
01:01:20,644 --> 01:01:23,247
and to look at this
within clinical contexts.

1014
01:01:24,080 --> 01:01:27,718
Now I want to move on
to looking a little bit

1015
01:01:28,918 --> 01:01:32,488
at what this means for the clinical space.

1016
01:01:35,765 --> 01:01:40,330
Most obviously it means that
as clinicians we take into

1017
01:01:40,330 --> 01:01:45,330
our clinical dyads and also
into our professional context

1018
01:01:45,469 --> 01:01:49,238
our own deeply internalized prejudice.

1019
01:01:50,342 --> 01:01:55,012
It means that we take with
us our subjective histories

1020
01:01:55,012 --> 01:01:57,948
and our identities, which then meld

1021
01:01:57,948 --> 01:02:01,518
with those of the client
with whom we are sitting.

1022
01:02:02,185 --> 01:02:04,944
It means that unless
we consciously begin to

1023
01:02:04,944 --> 01:02:08,459
work on interrogating
our rationalized selves,

1024
01:02:08,459 --> 01:02:12,395
we run the risk of enactment
within the clinical setting.

1025
01:02:13,630 --> 01:02:15,832
What comprises the subjectivity

1026
01:02:15,832 --> 01:02:17,867
which accompanies us into the room?

1027
01:02:18,502 --> 01:02:20,637
I want to come back to Lynne Layton's

1028
01:02:20,637 --> 01:02:23,239
notion of the normative unconscious.

1029
01:02:24,640 --> 01:02:27,311
She describes the normative unconscious as

1030
01:02:27,311 --> 01:02:32,215
the internalization of societal
norms which get laid down

1031
01:02:32,215 --> 01:02:36,052
within the relational
enclaves of love and hate.

1032
01:02:36,353 --> 01:02:38,855
Within our early relational contexts,

1033
01:02:38,855 --> 01:02:42,626
we begin to internalize societal norms.

1034
01:02:43,227 --> 01:02:47,197
The normative unconscious is
that aspect of the unconscious

1035
01:02:47,197 --> 01:02:50,200
which is compelled to repeat the behaviors

1036
01:02:50,200 --> 01:02:54,904
and the affect which we enforce
to stressing social norms

1037
01:02:55,305 --> 01:02:58,741
specifically around the
aspects of identity.

1038
01:02:59,576 --> 01:03:03,113
These norms tend to be organized around

1039
01:03:03,113 --> 01:03:06,683
aspects of identity and
are very context-specific.

1040
01:03:06,683 --> 01:03:10,353
Once again, I'm foregrounding
the importance of context.

1041
01:03:10,887 --> 01:03:12,689
They are derived from prevailing

1042
01:03:12,689 --> 01:03:16,425
social hierarchies and positions of power

1043
01:03:16,993 --> 01:03:21,031
and they are split
along lines of identity.

1044
01:03:21,765 --> 01:03:26,765
Identities, gender, race,
class, sexual orientation

1045
01:03:28,071 --> 01:03:33,071
becomes split into
good, bad, pure, impure.

1046
01:03:34,345 --> 01:03:37,447
These splits become internalized

1047
01:03:37,447 --> 01:03:41,985
and create a prevailing
normative unconscious.

1048
01:03:42,786 --> 01:03:45,689
What I want to emphasize
is that these splits

1049
01:03:45,689 --> 01:03:50,689
are internalized by all
within that societal matrix.

1050
01:03:51,761 --> 01:03:56,761
Let's say, for example,
there is a societal split

1051
01:03:57,934 --> 01:04:02,934
around race where whiteness
is seen as superior

1052
01:04:07,411 --> 01:04:10,480
and color is seen as inferior.

1053
01:04:11,581 --> 01:04:14,483
That societal split and that societal norm

1054
01:04:14,717 --> 01:04:19,155
becomes internalized,
not only in white people

1055
01:04:19,155 --> 01:04:21,791
but also in people of color.

1056
01:04:22,725 --> 01:04:27,064
This then has the potential
to lead to experiences

1057
01:04:27,064 --> 01:04:29,699
such as the racial melancholia,

1058
01:04:29,866 --> 01:04:33,703
which is described so
poignantly by Eng and Han.

1059
01:04:34,137 --> 01:04:39,137
The tendency by people of
color to deny or to disavow

1060
01:04:40,577 --> 01:04:44,482
their particular racial
identity in order to be able to

1061
01:04:44,482 --> 01:04:46,983
assimilate themselves into what might be

1062
01:04:46,983 --> 01:04:51,454
considered by them to be
the ideal of whiteness.

1063
01:04:53,393 --> 01:04:55,792
In talking about that, it
becomes possible to see

1064
01:04:55,792 --> 01:05:00,330
the ramifications of this deep-seated

1065
01:05:00,330 --> 01:05:03,900
normative unconscious
and just how it might

1066
01:05:03,900 --> 01:05:08,900
impact on the development
of individual identity.

1067
01:05:11,341 --> 01:05:15,311
These normative unconscious
processes then potentially

1068
01:05:15,311 --> 01:05:18,348
manifest themselves through the process of

1069
01:05:18,348 --> 01:05:23,348
interpellation or interpolation,
pronounced differently.

1070
01:05:23,753 --> 01:05:27,256
Interpellation is the
mechanism through which

1071
01:05:27,256 --> 01:05:30,393
ideology takes hold of the individual.

1072
01:05:31,628 --> 01:05:33,396
It is the mechanism through which

1073
01:05:33,396 --> 01:05:37,301
the individual is held by the state.

1074
01:05:38,601 --> 01:05:43,601
As a response, the individual
is invited to behave

1075
01:05:43,906 --> 01:05:48,906
and to espouse the
aspects of that identity

1076
01:05:50,480 --> 01:05:54,651
which are given to them by the state.

1077
01:05:55,858 --> 01:05:59,723
In other words, thinking about race,

1078
01:06:00,490 --> 01:06:04,227
thinking about race within
my own South African context,

1079
01:06:04,827 --> 01:06:08,431
growing up as a black
person during apartheid

1080
01:06:08,431 --> 01:06:13,269
meant internalizing a sense of otherness,

1081
01:06:13,269 --> 01:06:18,269
a sense of inferiority
in relation to whiteness.

1082
01:06:19,976 --> 01:06:23,646
The hailing of this state of identity

1083
01:06:23,646 --> 01:06:26,382
meant that for a black person

1084
01:06:27,412 --> 01:06:31,120
the interpellation would
be around inferiority.

1085
01:06:32,588 --> 01:06:35,725
Behavior then would begin to

1086
01:06:35,725 --> 01:06:38,962
reinforce that sense of inferiority.

1087
01:06:40,364 --> 01:06:42,932
Glenys Lobban, who's a
relational psychoanalyst

1088
01:06:42,932 --> 01:06:46,795
working out of New York,
wrote a very moving article

1089
01:06:46,795 --> 01:06:49,506
about her own experience
of interpellation.

1090
01:06:50,707 --> 01:06:54,477
She grew up in South Africa
and moved to the United States

1091
01:06:54,477 --> 01:06:56,546
as a young adult and has been living

1092
01:06:56,546 --> 01:06:59,515
and practicing in the United
States for many decades.

1093
01:07:00,300 --> 01:07:02,284
She was a child of a white family

1094
01:07:02,853 --> 01:07:05,855
and chose to remove herself from

1095
01:07:05,855 --> 01:07:08,492
the apartheid system
by leaving the country.

1096
01:07:09,392 --> 01:07:13,863
A few years ago, at a family
picnic back in South Africa,

1097
01:07:14,263 --> 01:07:17,734
she discovered through casual conversation

1098
01:07:17,734 --> 01:07:21,838
that her grandmother, her mother's mother,

1099
01:07:22,238 --> 01:07:24,307
was a woman of mixed race.

1100
01:07:26,312 --> 01:07:29,012
This was a family secret which

1101
01:07:29,012 --> 01:07:31,047
hadn't been openly spoken about

1102
01:07:31,047 --> 01:07:34,183
and it was the first time
that she heard about it.

1103
01:07:34,718 --> 01:07:39,718
What this meant is that
Lobban herself would have been

1104
01:07:41,725 --> 01:07:45,194
characterized as biracial or mixed race.

1105
01:07:46,262 --> 01:07:51,262
She then went to have her
DNA assessed and in fact

1106
01:07:52,702 --> 01:07:56,839
did discover that she was
of mixed race ancestry,

1107
01:07:57,440 --> 01:08:00,543
which of course was completely
different to the way

1108
01:08:00,543 --> 01:08:04,146
in which she had identified
up until that point.

1109
01:08:04,981 --> 01:08:09,518
She then describes the
process that she went through

1110
01:08:09,585 --> 01:08:11,354
after discovering this news.

1111
01:08:12,021 --> 01:08:14,390
She describes how she
suddenly found herself

1112
01:08:14,390 --> 01:08:17,393
behaving differently in her

1113
01:08:17,393 --> 01:08:20,296
social contexts here in the United States,

1114
01:08:20,663 --> 01:08:25,000
how she started to feel self
conscious in a new kind of way.

1115
01:08:26,002 --> 01:08:30,373
When she was ignored or
rebuffed by people in

1116
01:08:30,373 --> 01:08:33,309
particular contexts, she
began to wonder whether it was

1117
01:08:33,309 --> 01:08:36,212
because they could see
that she was of mixed race.

1118
01:08:37,005 --> 01:08:40,483
She became startled by
how she had interpolated

1119
01:08:41,698 --> 01:08:46,289
what being of mixed race
meant at a societal level

1120
01:08:46,289 --> 01:08:49,859
or perhaps even means at a societal level.

1121
01:08:50,994 --> 01:08:54,297
She writes about how unconscious

1122
01:08:54,297 --> 01:08:57,300
that process of interpellation is,

1123
01:08:58,501 --> 01:09:03,239
which is something else to
consider in our clinical work.

1124
01:09:03,773 --> 01:09:08,377
What have we interpolated
as a white person?

1125
01:09:09,579 --> 01:09:11,581
What have I taken into myself

1126
01:09:11,581 --> 01:09:15,417
and how do I live that out in my behavior?

1127
01:09:16,419 --> 01:09:19,922
As a woman, what have I interpolated?

1128
01:09:20,957 --> 01:09:24,206
What are the ways in
which we enact and behave

1129
01:09:24,990 --> 01:09:29,566
the societal identities
which are bestowed upon us?

1130
01:09:31,968 --> 01:09:34,270
So aspects of interpellation are very,

1131
01:09:34,270 --> 01:09:38,741
very important to consider
in terms of our work.

1132
01:09:39,909 --> 01:09:41,911
Something else to hold in mind

1133
01:09:41,911 --> 01:09:45,982
is what Curry in 1964 described
as the pre-transference.

1134
01:09:46,816 --> 01:09:50,449
Curry, a black analyst, wrote about

1135
01:09:50,941 --> 01:09:53,689
his clinical work with a white patient.

1136
01:09:54,523 --> 01:09:57,927
He spoke about the pre-transference

1137
01:09:58,327 --> 01:10:01,564
that this white patient
held about him, the analyst,

1138
01:10:01,731 --> 01:10:04,166
before he even came into the room.

1139
01:10:04,934 --> 01:10:08,071
He describes the pre-transference
as being those thoughts

1140
01:10:08,071 --> 01:10:10,240
and feelings about race which we take

1141
01:10:10,240 --> 01:10:14,777
into the room before we
have even met the client,

1142
01:10:14,777 --> 01:10:17,914
before we have even met the therapist.

1143
01:10:19,149 --> 01:10:24,149
That means that we are
unconsciously taking into the room

1144
01:10:24,621 --> 01:10:29,091
a whole set of assumptions
which we've not yet tested

1145
01:10:29,091 --> 01:10:32,195
or which are not actually
based on anything

1146
01:10:32,195 --> 01:10:34,297
about that particular person.

1147
01:10:35,231 --> 01:10:39,669
Again, this is all deeply unconscious.

1148
01:10:42,838 --> 01:10:45,942
Taking our subjectivities
into the room in the guise

1149
01:10:45,942 --> 01:10:48,178
of the normative unconscious processes,

1150
01:10:48,178 --> 01:10:50,046
in the guise of the pre-transference,

1151
01:10:50,046 --> 01:10:52,015
in the guise of our ubiquitous,

1152
01:10:52,015 --> 01:10:54,483
deeply internalized prejudice,

1153
01:10:55,484 --> 01:10:59,388
is going to impact on the clinical space.

1154
01:11:00,023 --> 01:11:03,693
I want to ask the question
and continue now to consider

1155
01:11:03,693 --> 01:11:08,693
the therapeutic cost of doing
this, but more importantly

1156
01:11:09,265 --> 01:11:14,265
the therapeutic cost of not
actively interrogating this

1157
01:11:14,404 --> 01:11:16,739
within ourselves and within our work.

1158
01:11:18,209 --> 01:11:22,812
I suggest that one of the
things that can happen

1159
01:11:24,073 --> 01:11:28,217
is a collapse of thinking, a collapse of

1160
01:11:28,217 --> 01:11:33,217
the capacity to think
within the clinical realm.

1161
01:11:34,791 --> 01:11:36,225
When I talk about thinking,

1162
01:11:36,225 --> 01:11:40,082
I'm referring specifically to
the writing of Wilfred Bion,

1163
01:11:40,913 --> 01:11:45,913
who introduced the
theory of thinking to us.

1164
01:11:47,070 --> 01:11:51,341
He suggested that the
development of thinking happens

1165
01:11:52,017 --> 01:11:56,379
in early infancy and it follows
a particular trajectory.

1166
01:11:56,379 --> 01:11:59,749
I'm going to give a brief summary of that

1167
01:11:59,749 --> 01:12:04,749
for purposes of clarity
because it's not necessarily

1168
01:12:06,589 --> 01:12:09,959
a theory that is a common or familiar one.

1169
01:12:10,659 --> 01:12:13,363
He suggested that in early infancy

1170
01:12:14,470 --> 01:12:18,601
the infant experiences
all sorts of sensations,

1171
01:12:19,536 --> 01:12:22,505
raw sensations within their body.

1172
01:12:23,172 --> 01:12:27,210
These raw sensations cannot be articulated

1173
01:12:27,210 --> 01:12:32,210
in any way as affects
or physiological needs.

1174
01:12:33,483 --> 01:12:35,384
They cannot be differentiated.

1175
01:12:36,489 --> 01:12:41,157
A sensation which signals
hunger may well feel the same

1176
01:12:41,157 --> 01:12:45,295
as the sensation that
signals anger or frustration,

1177
01:12:45,662 --> 01:12:49,098
but within the body of the infant

1178
01:12:49,698 --> 01:12:51,868
this cannot be articulated.

1179
01:12:53,169 --> 01:12:55,939
What happens then within the containment

1180
01:12:55,939 --> 01:13:00,939
of the early caregiver
relationship is that that caregiver

1181
01:13:02,147 --> 01:13:07,147
helps the infant to metabolize
those internal sensations

1182
01:13:09,719 --> 01:13:14,490
and to internalize them symbolically.

1183
01:13:15,525 --> 01:13:17,960
It is through the mind of the caregiver

1184
01:13:18,494 --> 01:13:22,198
that the infant begins to learn what these

1185
01:13:22,198 --> 01:13:25,434
raw sensations mean symbolically.

1186
01:13:27,270 --> 01:13:30,139
It is the conversion of these raw,

1187
01:13:30,240 --> 01:13:32,809
what Bion referred to as beta elements,

1188
01:13:32,809 --> 01:13:37,809
into more metabolized, more
symbolic alpha elements.

1189
01:13:40,016 --> 01:13:45,016
Thinking is the pivotal
link between feelings

1190
01:13:45,087 --> 01:13:49,391
as unknowable sensations
and the creation of meaning.

1191
01:13:50,426 --> 01:13:53,830
What we do within our clinical contexts

1192
01:13:53,830 --> 01:13:58,830
is we provide a container for our clients.

1193
01:13:59,835 --> 01:14:04,835
Part of our job is to help our
clients through metabolizing

1194
01:14:05,875 --> 01:14:08,911
the rawness of what
they bring into the room

1195
01:14:09,112 --> 01:14:12,615
and allowing them to take
that back into themselves

1196
01:14:12,983 --> 01:14:15,951
in a way that is symbolic and meaningful

1197
01:14:16,018 --> 01:14:18,187
and therefore bearable and manageable.

1198
01:14:19,955 --> 01:14:24,955
I suggest that when issues
of race come into the room,

1199
01:14:27,830 --> 01:14:32,830
they have the potential to
interact our capacity to think.

1200
01:14:34,170 --> 01:14:36,539
They have the potential
to interact our capacity

1201
01:14:36,739 --> 01:14:41,739
to be a container for
our client's material.

1202
01:14:43,980 --> 01:14:48,417
In that moment, there was
a breakdown of thinking.

1203
01:14:49,785 --> 01:14:53,222
This is articulated in
a number of articles

1204
01:14:53,222 --> 01:14:55,591
that have been written from the experience

1205
01:14:55,591 --> 01:14:59,270
near-perspective of clinicians
who are grappling with race.

1206
01:14:59,895 --> 01:15:02,049
Many of these articles, they describe

1207
01:15:02,049 --> 01:15:03,899
moments of mindlessness,

1208
01:15:04,767 --> 01:15:08,937
moments of numb,
overwhelming non-thinking.

1209
01:15:09,839 --> 01:15:13,475
Certainly, I can relate
to that in terms of

1210
01:15:13,475 --> 01:15:17,659
my own experience and I can recall moments

1211
01:15:18,320 --> 01:15:22,251
of mindlessness where I'm unable to think,

1212
01:15:22,585 --> 01:15:25,921
I'm unable to make sense of
what is happening in the room

1213
01:15:26,689 --> 01:15:31,689
and I can't find any context
for that and I feel quite lost.

1214
01:15:35,764 --> 01:15:38,334
Straker refers to this experience

1215
01:15:38,334 --> 01:15:41,004
as the anti-analytic third.

1216
01:15:41,604 --> 01:15:45,174
If we think about the analytic
third in Ogden's terms

1217
01:15:45,407 --> 01:15:48,711
as being that space of reverie in which

1218
01:15:48,711 --> 01:15:51,247
sense is made of the client's subjectivity

1219
01:15:51,247 --> 01:15:53,782
and our subjectivity and
how they come together,

1220
01:15:54,083 --> 01:15:56,986
then we can understand that
the anti-analytic third

1221
01:15:56,986 --> 01:15:59,855
is something that impedes that.

1222
01:16:00,489 --> 01:16:01,657
There's some truth on that.

1223
01:16:01,657 --> 01:16:04,293
It is a failure to think
about and make sense

1224
01:16:04,293 --> 01:16:07,162
of overwhelming affect in the room.

1225
01:16:08,430 --> 01:16:11,300
Straker suggests that
this anti-analytic third

1226
01:16:11,300 --> 01:16:15,337
rears its head and becomes
dominant when previous

1227
01:16:15,337 --> 01:16:19,441
noxious social discourses
intrude on the space.

1228
01:16:20,042 --> 01:16:23,412
Social discourses which are organized

1229
01:16:23,412 --> 01:16:26,215
around lines of identity, such as race,

1230
01:16:26,215 --> 01:16:28,450
gender and sexual orientation.

1231
01:16:30,238 --> 01:16:34,423
For me, when I'm sitting in
a room in my clinician's garb

1232
01:16:34,824 --> 01:16:39,295
and something comes into
the room that implicates

1233
01:16:39,295 --> 01:16:44,295
my racial history and identity
and that of the client,

1234
01:16:45,168 --> 01:16:48,103
it is a noxious social
discourse that comes in

1235
01:16:48,103 --> 01:16:50,872
from the outside and it
comes in from the past.

1236
01:16:50,906 --> 01:16:52,875
It is our history and our currency,

1237
01:16:53,208 --> 01:16:56,178
and at that moment I
lose my clinician's garb.

1238
01:16:56,578 --> 01:17:01,283
I become a white South
African woman who is trying to

1239
01:17:01,283 --> 01:17:05,520
grapple with these internal
sensations of my own,

1240
01:17:06,388 --> 01:17:10,559
let alone the internal
sensations of my client.

1241
01:17:14,250 --> 01:17:17,946
The potential for a breakdown in thinking

1242
01:17:19,068 --> 01:17:24,068
is a very serious
consequence to the intrusion

1243
01:17:25,007 --> 01:17:28,143
of racially-based
subjectivity into the room.

1244
01:17:30,446 --> 01:17:35,446
Another therapeutic cost is
a failure of skill and ethic.

1245
01:17:38,245 --> 01:17:40,122
There's a breakdown of thinking,

1246
01:17:40,523 --> 01:17:44,192
a potential breakdown of
mentalization, of foregrounding,

1247
01:17:44,594 --> 01:17:49,398
of mechanization, a
reduction to stereotyping.

1248
01:17:50,399 --> 01:17:53,443
In these moments there
can be a real struggle

1249
01:17:53,443 --> 01:17:55,671
to find a resonance of a likeness

1250
01:17:55,671 --> 01:17:58,640
with this person with
whom I'm sitting with.

1251
01:17:58,707 --> 01:18:00,643
This is of particular relevance

1252
01:18:00,643 --> 01:18:05,643
when sitting with a cross-racial client,

1253
01:18:06,014 --> 01:18:09,918
but equally it can happen
in moments of sitting with

1254
01:18:09,918 --> 01:18:14,456
a same race client where I can't find

1255
01:18:15,040 --> 01:18:17,426
a resonance of likeness
because there has been

1256
01:18:17,426 --> 01:18:19,461
too much of a rupture between us

1257
01:18:19,461 --> 01:18:21,964
and unless I can find a
resonance of a likeness,

1258
01:18:21,964 --> 01:18:25,501
I cannot find empathy and so one of our

1259
01:18:25,501 --> 01:18:28,670
most taken for granted clinical skills

1260
01:18:29,208 --> 01:18:34,176
suddenly evaporates and
cannot be found in the room.

1261
01:18:36,345 --> 01:18:38,013
A failure of skill.

1262
01:18:38,147 --> 01:18:39,681
A failure of ethic.

1263
01:18:41,283 --> 01:18:44,620
Stephen Frosh writes about the ethics

1264
01:18:44,620 --> 01:18:47,989
of working within a relational context.

1265
01:18:48,624 --> 01:18:51,460
He argues that taking race consciously

1266
01:18:51,460 --> 01:18:55,130
into account is an ethical imperative

1267
01:18:55,130 --> 01:18:58,667
for the relationally-orientated clinician.

1268
01:18:59,535 --> 01:19:02,204
He suggests that an ethical stance

1269
01:19:02,204 --> 01:19:05,274
includes acknowledgment of complicity

1270
01:19:05,274 --> 01:19:08,444
and the taking of responsibility for

1271
01:19:08,444 --> 01:19:12,514
our own capacity for
aggression and destructiveness.

1272
01:19:13,182 --> 01:19:17,686
It means taking onboard our own identity

1273
01:19:17,686 --> 01:19:21,957
and all of the meanings
that that identity has.

1274
01:19:23,025 --> 01:19:25,494
Within a clinical context and within

1275
01:19:25,494 --> 01:19:29,164
our professional context,
it means taking into account

1276
01:19:29,164 --> 01:19:34,164
social and historical influences
which impact on the dyad.

1277
01:19:37,539 --> 01:19:42,539
This ethical stance aligns
itself also to social work values

1278
01:19:44,880 --> 01:19:49,351
where we are compelled
to always hold in mind

1279
01:19:50,877 --> 01:19:55,877
the impact of the external
environment on the space.

1280
01:19:58,193 --> 01:20:01,329
The therapeutic costs are severe

1281
01:20:01,463 --> 01:20:05,267
and they are significant
enough to not be ignored.

1282
01:20:06,068 --> 01:20:09,337
The question is what do we do?

1283
01:20:10,706 --> 01:20:14,276
How do we confront this?

1284
01:20:14,543 --> 01:20:16,044
How do we counter it?

1285
01:20:16,078 --> 01:20:19,682
How do we begin to work
with it and to manage it?

1286
01:20:22,416 --> 01:20:26,321
There's quite a bit that has
been written about what to do

1287
01:20:26,321 --> 01:20:29,891
when race enters the
room or to actually do,

1288
01:20:30,859 --> 01:20:35,130
how to intervene, how to
interpret, what meaning to make,

1289
01:20:35,764 --> 01:20:38,934
but I want to step back from
that and suggest that that is

1290
01:20:38,934 --> 01:20:43,205
a little too far down the
line to be a starting point.

1291
01:20:44,040 --> 01:20:47,342
The starting point has
to be with ourselves.

1292
01:20:48,310 --> 01:20:51,046
I suggest that in order to begin

1293
01:20:51,630 --> 01:20:54,316
to counter the negative
impacts of prejudice

1294
01:20:54,316 --> 01:20:58,921
and historical racism we
need to actively interrogate

1295
01:20:58,921 --> 01:21:01,757
our own racial history and
our own racial identity,

1296
01:21:01,757 --> 01:21:04,126
and that is not a simple,
straightforward task.

1297
01:21:04,159 --> 01:21:07,929
It's not a walk in the park
or an afternoon cup of tea.

1298
01:21:08,430 --> 01:21:12,167
It is hard, grueling self examination,

1299
01:21:13,301 --> 01:21:15,971
but it has enormous and profound benefit.

1300
01:21:16,672 --> 01:21:20,075
We need to become familiar
with our own history,

1301
01:21:20,643 --> 01:21:23,312
to have conversations with ourselves

1302
01:21:23,312 --> 01:21:25,480
about where we come from and about what

1303
01:21:25,480 --> 01:21:29,518
that might mean for our
particular identity.

1304
01:21:31,387 --> 01:21:36,387
In the room, we need to begin
to have a tuning in filter

1305
01:21:38,656 --> 01:21:42,964
around enactments in relation to race.

1306
01:21:44,633 --> 01:21:46,235
We need to be able to tune in

1307
01:21:46,235 --> 01:21:50,940
to the internal prompts
which we might respond to,

1308
01:21:51,678 --> 01:21:55,810
which then become some
kind of an enactment.

1309
01:21:56,812 --> 01:21:58,780
We need to become aware
of what is happening

1310
01:21:58,780 --> 01:22:03,218
in the room on a moment to moment basis.

1311
01:22:04,887 --> 01:22:09,458
Dennis Mills, in writing
about the growing identity

1312
01:22:09,458 --> 01:22:12,394
of social work, clinical
social work students,

1313
01:22:12,594 --> 01:22:17,594
suggests that if we actively
interrogate our own identity,

1314
01:22:18,500 --> 01:22:21,270
the consequence is a growing awareness

1315
01:22:21,737 --> 01:22:25,040
and a growing capacity
for self reflection.

1316
01:22:26,697 --> 01:22:31,697
Bonnie Badenoch suggests that
within a context of a safe,

1317
01:22:33,816 --> 01:22:38,816
therapeutic relationship, the
neurobiological substrates

1318
01:22:40,188 --> 01:22:45,188
around social templates can
be understood and challenged

1319
01:22:46,929 --> 01:22:50,632
and can slowly change over time.

1320
01:22:52,851 --> 01:22:57,806
I have to say that in my own
experience, this feels valid.

1321
01:22:58,907 --> 01:23:00,577
I mentioned at the
beginning of the lecture

1322
01:23:00,577 --> 01:23:04,179
that part of my own work
in this area has been

1323
01:23:04,179 --> 01:23:08,117
to participate in a study
group with other clinicians

1324
01:23:08,117 --> 01:23:10,485
in which we think and talk about race.

1325
01:23:11,086 --> 01:23:13,822
If I consider the process for myself

1326
01:23:14,089 --> 01:23:17,325
from when we began that
group to where we are now,

1327
01:23:17,893 --> 01:23:21,797
I am acutely aware of how
bringing into consciousness

1328
01:23:22,950 --> 01:23:27,469
my own internal prompts
and my own impulses

1329
01:23:27,969 --> 01:23:32,969
has been enormously
valuable in recognizing

1330
01:23:33,175 --> 01:23:38,175
my internal prejudice and
my tendency to stereotype.

1331
01:23:38,914 --> 01:23:42,276
What has happened, and something for which

1332
01:23:42,276 --> 01:23:44,678
I'm deeply grateful, within the context of

1333
01:23:44,678 --> 01:23:48,323
this particular group is that
we have afforded one another

1334
01:23:48,323 --> 01:23:53,323
the safety of being able
to speak with honesty

1335
01:23:53,328 --> 01:23:56,931
and with integrity about
our internal experiences.

1336
01:23:57,599 --> 01:24:01,103
I have been able to share
and to listen to other people

1337
01:24:01,103 --> 01:24:05,607
sharing their own fears,
their own prejudices,

1338
01:24:05,607 --> 01:24:09,044
their own threats within
the context of our own

1339
01:24:09,044 --> 01:24:11,980
and very different autobiographies.

1340
01:24:12,548 --> 01:24:17,548
This has surfaced things for me
that I did not know were there.

1341
01:24:19,121 --> 01:24:23,125
This has opened up possibilities
for engagement for me

1342
01:24:23,125 --> 01:24:26,995
that previously I would never
have imagined were possible.

1343
01:24:28,530 --> 01:24:33,101
It's not so long ago that
I, like the social workers

1344
01:24:33,101 --> 01:24:37,506
and lawyer studies, would have shied away

1345
01:24:37,506 --> 01:24:39,708
from cross-racial or cross-cultural work.

1346
01:24:40,510 --> 01:24:45,510
I find myself in a position now
where I actively seek it out

1347
01:24:47,416 --> 01:24:48,750
because the engagement feels

1348
01:24:48,750 --> 01:24:53,288
so much more real than it did in the past.

1349
01:24:53,389 --> 01:24:57,492
That is not to say that
the journey is done for me.

1350
01:24:57,493 --> 01:24:59,361
It is really only in its infancy,

1351
01:24:59,461 --> 01:25:04,199
but it has been profoundly constructive.

1352
01:25:05,468 --> 01:25:08,203
Actively interrogating our own identity,

1353
01:25:08,303 --> 01:25:11,206
having dialogues with
our self, with ourselves,

1354
01:25:11,206 --> 01:25:13,708
having dialogues with others

1355
01:25:14,106 --> 01:25:17,245
is something pivotal to be done.

1356
01:25:18,793 --> 01:25:23,318
Something else which is
of crucial importance

1357
01:25:24,152 --> 01:25:27,689
is the understanding of
theory and the understanding

1358
01:25:27,689 --> 01:25:31,326
of what happens at a theoretical level

1359
01:25:31,326 --> 01:25:34,829
around these particular
issues and dynamics.

1360
01:25:36,131 --> 01:25:39,668
Caroline Garland talks about
the importance of theory

1361
01:25:39,668 --> 01:25:41,469
in the context of trauma work.

1362
01:25:41,603 --> 01:25:43,539
She says the thing that differentiates us

1363
01:25:43,539 --> 01:25:46,208
as clinicians from the
ordinary person in the street

1364
01:25:46,208 --> 01:25:48,344
who might be listening to a tale of trauma

1365
01:25:48,344 --> 01:25:53,344
is that we are able to bear the narrative

1366
01:25:53,949 --> 01:25:56,385
and to bear witness to the narrative,

1367
01:25:56,385 --> 01:26:00,255
because we are scaffolded
by our knowledge of theory,

1368
01:26:00,255 --> 01:26:02,958
because we are able to
make sense of the narrative

1369
01:26:02,958 --> 01:26:05,260
through the lens of theory.

1370
01:26:05,994 --> 01:26:10,994
Theory has the potential
to be a third in the room,

1371
01:26:12,234 --> 01:26:15,337
such that if we can
make sense theoretically

1372
01:26:15,337 --> 01:26:19,507
of what is happening in those
moments of mindlessness,

1373
01:26:19,507 --> 01:26:23,278
of uncontainment and disregulated affect,

1374
01:26:23,812 --> 01:26:27,782
we can call upon the theory to bolster us

1375
01:26:28,149 --> 01:26:32,654
and to restore the capacity
for thinking so that

1376
01:26:32,654 --> 01:26:37,654
they can be constructive
engagement and movement forward.

1377
01:26:42,411 --> 01:26:46,068
Acknowledging and working
with race means extending

1378
01:26:46,068 --> 01:26:49,571
the dialogue with ourselves
into our professional context

1379
01:26:49,804 --> 01:26:53,808
and this also relates to
Frosh's imperative around

1380
01:26:53,808 --> 01:26:58,808
the ethical need to interrogate
race within our context.

1381
01:27:00,882 --> 01:27:03,985
That extending the discussion into

1382
01:27:03,985 --> 01:27:06,621
broader professional contexts is something

1383
01:27:06,621 --> 01:27:09,657
which can be very, very powerful.

1384
01:27:12,152 --> 01:27:14,729
What do we do within the
clinical sphere itself,

1385
01:27:16,231 --> 01:27:19,762
when we are sitting
with a same race client

1386
01:27:19,762 --> 01:27:24,639
who invites us to collude
in a racist enactment?

1387
01:27:25,741 --> 01:27:28,410
When we are sitting with
a cross-raced client

1388
01:27:29,425 --> 01:27:34,425
who surfaces in us deeply held prejudices

1389
01:27:35,986 --> 01:27:39,020
or uncomfortable feelings of stereotypes?

1390
01:27:39,788 --> 01:27:41,557
What do we actually do?

1391
01:27:42,457 --> 01:27:44,793
Unfortunately, there is no formula

1392
01:27:45,226 --> 01:27:47,830
and there are no step-by-step models.

1393
01:27:48,464 --> 01:27:52,901
There is debate about how
to actually work with race

1394
01:27:53,835 --> 01:27:56,972
and there are differing opinions

1395
01:27:56,972 --> 01:28:00,249
about whether and when to surface race.

1396
01:28:00,249 --> 01:28:02,277
Certainly there are some writers,

1397
01:28:02,277 --> 01:28:06,348
Morgan writing from the United Kingdom

1398
01:28:06,348 --> 01:28:08,750
and Swartz writing from South Africa,

1399
01:28:08,884 --> 01:28:12,053
both white women, suggest that

1400
01:28:12,745 --> 01:28:16,158
bringing race into the room
at the outset is important.

1401
01:28:16,926 --> 01:28:18,360
Now Poza, a black woman

1402
01:28:18,360 --> 01:28:21,029
writing within the South
African context, differs,

1403
01:28:21,330 --> 01:28:25,200
saying that to foreground
race at the outset

1404
01:28:25,434 --> 01:28:28,504
can feel enormously jarring and alienating

1405
01:28:28,504 --> 01:28:33,408
and inappropriate at such an
early state of relationship.

1406
01:28:34,176 --> 01:28:37,112
I think it's safe to say that there can be

1407
01:28:37,112 --> 01:28:40,748
no formulaic response to this question.

1408
01:28:42,472 --> 01:28:47,472
I think that it's safe
to say that it is through

1409
01:28:47,489 --> 01:28:50,926
an astute reading of each situation

1410
01:28:51,464 --> 01:28:53,628
that we will make the decision about when

1411
01:28:53,628 --> 01:28:56,732
and whether to foreground
race at some point.

1412
01:28:58,433 --> 01:29:03,433
Nelson, in her writing,
has suggested that we find

1413
01:29:04,373 --> 01:29:08,788
points of meeting and points of resonance

1414
01:29:08,788 --> 01:29:12,380
and sameness before we
foreground difference,

1415
01:29:12,915 --> 01:29:17,285
which is also for me a useful
way of thinking about it.

1416
01:29:18,353 --> 01:29:23,353
At the very least, to surface race

1417
01:29:24,660 --> 01:29:29,398
within our own clinician's
mind is of vital importance.

1418
01:29:29,864 --> 01:29:32,334
Whether or not we verbalize
this to the client

1419
01:29:32,334 --> 01:29:34,969
or bring it into the
room in any direct way,

1420
01:29:34,969 --> 01:29:37,772
we need to be thinking about it ourselves,

1421
01:29:37,772 --> 01:29:40,843
knowing that if we are holding it in mind

1422
01:29:41,550 --> 01:29:43,745
through a parallel unconscious process,

1423
01:29:43,745 --> 01:29:45,647
it is being held in mind within

1424
01:29:45,647 --> 01:29:48,583
the inter-subjectivity of the dyad,

1425
01:29:49,184 --> 01:29:52,687
and to trust, as Winnicott said,

1426
01:29:53,255 --> 01:29:56,392
that when the material presents itself,

1427
01:29:56,658 --> 01:30:01,658
we will know the right moment
to make an interpretation

1428
01:30:01,796 --> 01:30:06,796
or to make a link or to
verbalize our own internal state.

1429
01:30:11,673 --> 01:30:13,876
In order to do this, we need to tune into

1430
01:30:13,876 --> 01:30:16,044
our own counter-transference reactions

1431
01:30:16,044 --> 01:30:18,079
and we need to tune into the verbal

1432
01:30:18,079 --> 01:30:23,079
and the non-verbal cues
given to us by our clients.

1433
01:30:24,882 --> 01:30:29,882
Sally Swartz suggests that we
adopt a stance of curiosity

1434
01:30:32,307 --> 01:30:34,762
when it comes to thinking about race,

1435
01:30:35,297 --> 01:30:37,265
that we need to sit lightly,

1436
01:30:38,166 --> 01:30:41,436
that we need to not be
scared to ask questions.

1437
01:30:42,537 --> 01:30:45,039
We need to not be scared to ask questions.

1438
01:30:46,163 --> 01:30:48,443
This resonates particularly for me

1439
01:30:48,443 --> 01:30:53,443
as I recall experiences
mostly in cross-racial dyads

1440
01:30:54,115 --> 01:30:56,451
where I have been sitting
with somebody who feels

1441
01:30:56,451 --> 01:31:01,451
so different to me in terms of
her history, her upbringing,

1442
01:31:02,023 --> 01:31:06,094
her context, that I feel
afraid to ask questions

1443
01:31:06,094 --> 01:31:09,397
because it will foreground my ignorance.

1444
01:31:10,598 --> 01:31:13,935
I recall these moments
and I recall the feeling

1445
01:31:13,935 --> 01:31:18,740
of being straight jacketed
by my own fears in a way

1446
01:31:18,740 --> 01:31:23,740
that then stifles the spontaneity
of the clinical context.

1447
01:31:25,046 --> 01:31:29,017
To sit back, to sit lightly
and to sit curiously

1448
01:31:29,017 --> 01:31:32,420
I think is such a powerful suggestion

1449
01:31:33,322 --> 01:31:37,426
and certainly as I have
started to experiment with that

1450
01:31:37,426 --> 01:31:41,863
in my own work I have found
that it opens up the space

1451
01:31:41,863 --> 01:31:46,863
between in a particularly
powerful and multidimensional way.

1452
01:31:49,171 --> 01:31:53,108
I want to, as I draw
this lecture to a close,

1453
01:31:54,292 --> 01:31:58,479
think about the importance
of a number of things,

1454
01:31:59,814 --> 01:32:04,814
the importance of dialogue,
dialogue firstly with ourselves

1455
01:32:05,087 --> 01:32:09,090
and then dialogue with
colleagues and with others.

1456
01:32:10,459 --> 01:32:15,062
I'm reminded here of a
presentation I went to recently.

1457
01:32:15,830 --> 01:32:17,916
It was a presentation which was given

1458
01:32:18,362 --> 01:32:23,362
by two German analysts: one
the son of holocaust survivors,

1459
01:32:25,107 --> 01:32:28,743
and the other the
daughter of an SS Officer.

1460
01:32:29,444 --> 01:32:33,581
The two of them belonged
to a dialogue group

1461
01:32:33,581 --> 01:32:35,883
which was started in
Germany in the early '90s,

1462
01:32:36,051 --> 01:32:39,220
which is a group of
children of perpetrators

1463
01:32:39,220 --> 01:32:41,822
and victims of the holocaust,

1464
01:32:42,390 --> 01:32:46,728
and these two presenters spoke about

1465
01:32:46,728 --> 01:32:49,598
their own journey of
dialogue with one another,

1466
01:32:49,598 --> 01:32:52,834
which now spans almost 20 years

1467
01:32:53,169 --> 01:32:58,169
and how this process of
dialogue has slowly, painfully,

1468
01:32:58,406 --> 01:33:03,406
but fruitfully allowed them
to get to know one another

1469
01:33:03,812 --> 01:33:08,583
in a particularly nuanced and helpful way.

1470
01:33:09,918 --> 01:33:13,955
It made me think about
the power of dialogue,

1471
01:33:15,190 --> 01:33:16,958
which is no easy task.

1472
01:33:17,459 --> 01:33:21,196
It's a brave task, but
it has the potential

1473
01:33:21,196 --> 01:33:24,198
to open up spaces within and between

1474
01:33:24,198 --> 01:33:28,737
that are enormously exciting
and enormously powerful.

1475
01:33:30,272 --> 01:33:33,275
Part of this, as I said earlier,

1476
01:33:33,275 --> 01:33:37,379
is curiosity, curiosity about the other.

1477
01:33:38,346 --> 01:33:42,651
Part of this is mutual
respect, so really coming from

1478
01:33:42,651 --> 01:33:47,651
a position of respecting
both my role in this dialogue

1479
01:33:48,857 --> 01:33:52,093
but also your role in this dialogue,

1480
01:33:52,960 --> 01:33:57,960
and it is about recognition,
which makes me think

1481
01:33:58,333 --> 01:34:02,971
of Jessica Benjamin's construct
of mutual recognition.

1482
01:34:03,972 --> 01:34:06,408
Mutual recognition is what happens

1483
01:34:06,408 --> 01:34:08,644
when two people come together

1484
01:34:08,644 --> 01:34:12,881
and they are able to find
points of interaction,

1485
01:34:12,881 --> 01:34:17,881
points of resonance which are based on

1486
01:34:18,053 --> 01:34:22,491
acknowledgment and
recognition of the other.

1487
01:34:23,625 --> 01:34:28,625
She says very pivotally and
very movingly the following.

1488
01:34:31,733 --> 01:34:33,786
She says that recognition

1489
01:34:34,263 --> 01:34:38,673
is the life-giving
exchange with the world,

1490
01:34:41,782 --> 01:34:46,782
and it is that recognition and
it is that process of knowing

1491
01:34:49,484 --> 01:34:54,189
which I deeply believe can be the product

1492
01:34:54,189 --> 01:34:57,859
of this particular arena of work

1493
01:34:57,859 --> 01:35:00,061
within our clinical and
professional contexts.

1494
01:35:00,995 --> 01:35:03,164
I would like to leave you with that

1495
01:35:03,932 --> 01:35:08,369
and invite you to continue on the process

1496
01:35:08,369 --> 01:35:12,707
of recognition of self and
recognition of the other

1497
01:35:14,342 --> 01:35:18,846
as we progress towards reconciliation

1498
01:35:19,047 --> 01:35:22,483
and resolution and deeply meaningful

1499
01:35:22,483 --> 01:35:24,919
clinical work within the realm of race.

1500
01:35:26,227 --> 01:35:27,855
Thank you.