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The work before us: Whiteness and the psychoanalytic institute

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Abstract

The paper uses historical and socio-psychoanalytically informed perspectives to consider why psychoanalysis has not been more effective in challenging the whiteness of psychoanalytic theory and institutes. Intersecting forces are examined including, in contrast to its radical origins, the particular conservatism of U.S. psychoanalysis from the 1940s through the 1980s. Further, the legacies of slavery which then shaped northern neo-liberal ideologies and effectively precluded discourse concerning race are discussed. Socio-psychoanalytic theories are offered to open discourse and to challenge the whiteness of psychoanalytic theory and its institutions. Specific proposals for systemic institutional change are presented.

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    Alexandra Woods

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Woods, A. The work before us: Whiteness and the psychoanalytic institute. Psychoanal Cult Soc 25, 230–249 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41282-019-00155-3

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