IPTAR PRESENTS DOROTHY EVANS HOLMES, PhD  “I DO NOT HAVE A RACIST BONE IN MY BODY”: PSYCHOANALYTIC PERSPECTIVES ON WHAT IS LOST AND NOT MOURNED IN OUR CULTURE’S PERSISTENT RACISM DISCUSSANT: MICHAEL MOSKOWITZ, PhD SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2020 ON ZOOM 10:00 AM — 1:00 PM

General: $100 includes 3 CE Credits  IPTAR Members: $75 includes 3 CE Credits Candidates & Students: $25 includes 3 CE Credits
Register Here (an account must be made to register for non-members): IPTAR PROGRAM COMMITTEE:
Brian Kloppenberg (Chair), Jeanne Even, Susan Finkelstein, Anna Fishzon, Lynne Herbst, Judy Ann Kaplan, Masha Mimran, Jamie Stevens, Yukari Yanagino

Dorothy Evans Holmes calls for the need to include race as an important part of psychoanalytic inquiry. She argues that when one’s affiliation to whiteness gets split-off and disavowed in clinical work, it eventually comes back as a ghost and interferes with the psychotherapeutic work of symbolization and mourning.

For Holmes, the ongoing disavowal of the identification to whiteness contributes to the creation of a self that does not allow acceptance of the pain inflicted on the non-white racial Other and thereby drains psychic strength and vitality. Analyst and patient often implicitly agree to regard whiteness as the norm, rendering the experiences of racialized others as irregular, and thus, undesirable. But the “irregular” within whiteness, Holmes explains, often is not observed and put under psychoanalytic investigation. Through her clinical examples Holmes shows the effect of the identification to whiteness that has been split off and disavowed. Such dynamics generate powerful turbulence in the transference and countertransference matrix. Holmes tells us that, without sustained, rigorous attention to the disavowal of race in the field of psychoanalysis, there can be no change in our collective efforts to challenge racism in our consulting rooms, institutes, associations, and theory-making.

Discussant Michael Moskowitz will contribute his own nuanced response to this important paper. There will be ample time for interaction between program participants with Holmes and Moskowitz. With this event, the IPTAR Program Committee begins a series of programs that will focus on the psychoanalytic investigation of racism.

Dorothy Evans Holmes, PhD, is a Teaching, Training, and Supervising Analyst in the Psychoanalytic Center of the Carolinas, Professor and PsyD Program Director Emeritus at the George Washington University, Teaching, Training and Supervising Analyst Emeritus at the Washington Baltimore Center for Psychoanalysis, and a Fellow of the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research (IPTAR).  Dr. Holmes is widely-recognized for her work on the impact of race and gender on psychoanalytic treatment process. Her two most recent of many refereed journal articles are: Holmes, D. (2020), Feminism revisited:  a rejoinder to Arlene Kramer Richards’ examination of the impact of feminism on psychoanalysis, in press in: The Journal of Psychoanalytic Controversy; and Holmes, D. (2019), Our country ‘tis of we and them: Psychoanalytic perspectives on our fractured American identity, American Imago, 76:359-379. Dr. Holmes has served on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis and The Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association.  She continues to be involved in national psychoanalytic organization leadership, including that she currently serves as Chair of the Committee on Race and Ethnicity in Psychoanalytic Education, Section on Diversities, the American Psychoanalytic Education, and she is a Trustee on the Board of the Accreditation Council of Psychoanalytic Education.  Dr. Holmes practices psychoanalysis and psychotherapy in Bluffton, SC.

Michael Moskowitz is past-President of the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research (IPTAR). He is on the faculty of the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, and the NYU School of Social Work. He has written about psychoanalytic theory, organizational dynamics, race, ethnicity, and neuroscience.  He is co-editor of three books including Reaching Across Boundaries of Culture and Class: Widening the Scope of Psychotherapy, and author of Reading Minds: A Guide to the Cognitive Neuroscience Revolution.  Dr. Moskowitz was co-founder and CEO of Other Press and Managing Director of Karnac books. He was Team Leader of the first VA Vietnam Veterans center in the northeast, a recipient of the Gradiva award for his work in psychoanalytic publishing, and is co-producer of Black Psychoanalysts Speak and associate producer of Psychoanalysis in El Barrio.

Learning Objectives:

To understand the disavowal of race as a psychoanalytic way of thinking about racism in broader sociocultural as well as clinical terms.
To understand how to work therapeutically with the disavowal of race, both in terms of the transference and the countertransference.
To understand how the disavowal of race impacts upon the field of psychoanalysis.
Social Workers: The Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research (IPTAR) is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers (#SW-0226).

Licensed Psychoanalysts: The Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research (IPTAR) is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychoanalysts (#P-0011).

Licensed Creative Arts Therapists: The Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research (IPTAR) is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed creative arts therapists (#CAT-0037).

Licensed Mental Health Counselors: The Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research (IPTAR) is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed mental health counselors. (#MHC-0112).

(3) CE credits will be granted to participants who have registered, have documented evidence of attendance of the entire program and have completed the on-line evaluation form. Upon completion of the evaluation form a Certificate of Completion will be emailed to all participants who comply with these requirements.

Many thanks from the IPTAR Program Committee: Brian Kloppenberg (Chair), Jeanne Even, Susan Finkelstein, Anna Fishzon, Lynne Herbst, Judy Ann Kaplan, Masha Mimran, Jamie Stevens, Yukari Yanagino