Content uploaded by Helen Morgan
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Helen Morgan on Sep 16, 2020
Content may be subject to copyright.
ISSUES OF ‘RACE’ IN PSYCHOANALYTIC PSYCHOTHERAPY:
WHOSE PROBLEM IS IT ANYWAY?1
Helen Morgan
abstract The author argues in this paper that, because of racism, there is an
asymmetrical power relationship between black and white which saturates all aspects
of society. Whilst this dynamic also permeates psychoanalytic training organizations
the problem is frequently ignored or denied.This colour-blind position fails to see or
acknowledge difference and hence the white individual is able to avoid the shame
involved in owning any racist thought. For the black trainee an important aspect of
their identity and experience is not allowed expression, making the training experi-
ence a difficult one.However, the paper argues that the inability to acknowledge and
think about racism has implications, not only for potential black applicants and
patients, but also for the professional organizations and their predominantly white
members as this cordial form of racism prevents thought and does damage to both
white and black.
Key words: race, racism, black, white, colour-blindness, psychotherapy, psycho-
analysis, supervision, training.
Introduction
From time to time it will be publicly noticed how few black people enter the
profession of psychoanalytic psychotherapy relative to the complex cultural
mix of twenty-first century Britain. In this paper I consider whether this fact
matters and, if so, to whom? When discussions arise about the lack of black
people entering training, the problem and therefore the solution tend to be
sought in the potential black applicant. Thought is given to the high cost of
an analytic training or to questions as to whether analytic thinking is anti-
thetical to a different cultural perspective. These may be valid points for
consideration, but the danger is they allow members of this predominately
1. The evidence that has emerged from recent developments in the analysis of DNA
confirms that the concept of ‘race’ is a constructed one with no objective basis in
biology. This concept as well as the use of concepts such as ‘black’ and ‘white’ was
imposed by the colonial powers and is a relatively recent idea. It is, as Rustin puts it,
‘....both an empty category and one of the most powerful forms of social categor-
ization’ (Rustin 1991, p. 57). To acknowledge the emptiness of the category I shall
refer to ‘race’ in apostrophes throughout this paper.
helen morgan is a senior member of the British Association of Psychotherapists
where she is a training analyst and supervisor for the Jungian Analytic section. She
has been part of the group leading on considerations of ‘Race and Equity’ in the BAP
with special focus on research, theoretical and clinical explorations and consider-
ation of the implications for training. Address for correspondence: 35 Bertie Road,
London NW10 2LJ. [email: Helen@nw10.demon.co.uk]
34
© The author
Journal compilation © 2008 BAP and Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road,
Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
white profession to avoid not only our responsibility for this state of affairs,
but also what insights might be lost.
Whilst all sorts of differential power relationships prevail within any
society which will inevitably reverberate throughout any of its institutions,I
am focusing only on the matter of colour racism here.This is because of the
curious fact that this difference is by definition so visible and yet we seem to
be so blind to it. What might be thought of as a rather noisy problem has a
particular sort of silence within so that we in psychoanalytic institutions
seem unable to talk to ourselves about it.After all, we are rarely reluctant to
talk and think about other matters that seem to be unspeakable, and we
assume that harm is being done,not only to the part that is not being spoken
about or to,but also to the one who is silent. My raising the question of what
is it that we as white psychotherapists lose when we fail to talk about this
matter is not merely a concern for a lack of richness in the cultural make-up
of our institutions, but something more subtle, more damaging, a real emo-
tional and intellectual impoverishment of the ‘white’ psyche.
Is There a Problem?
For her dissertation for the MSc which is run jointly by the BAP and
Birkbeck, Margaret James-Franklin (2004) interviewed black psychoanalytic
psychotherapists who had trained in a number of different organizations
about their experiences in training. The difficulties they reported painted a
picture of the black individual accepted into the training as long as they put
aside and ignore their ‘blackness’. The pressures were subtle but wearing.
Some felt that their ethnicity attracted negative special attention during the
interview process, citing instances of being quizzed on matters the equiva-
lent of which were not put to white applicants.Some reported raising points
in seminars about theoretical and clinical material from the point of view of
diversity, racial difference, cultural variation, racism etc. which were ignored
or dismissed by teachers and peers who were clearly uncomfortable in
speaking freely about such matters.Generally the climate was one of colour-
blindness where trainers, supervisors and analysts took the position that
differences in colour are not relevant as we are all the same. This meant a
failure to acknowledge any matter of difference and required the black
trainee to ignore important aspects of her or his experience.
In his work on ‘Racism as a borderline issue’, Frank Lowe writes:
I haven’t met a black therapist or trainee therapist who has been satisfied with
their training organization’s handling of race issues or feels confident that the
profession is addressing the problem. I have explored how colour-blindness or
race avoidance can occur as a defence against fear and helplessness and I
believe it also operates at an institutional level as a mechanism to maintain
power, i.e. the status quo with its traditional power relations, authority and
control. (Lowe 2006, p. 56)
HELEN MORGAN 35
Farhad Dalal describes his experience as a black therapist in supervision:
I was speaking about the theme of colour when my clinical supervisor (white)
said that he was not usually aware of the person’s ‘race’ or colour in a session;
it was not a significant issue for him. This surprised me as I am often conscious
in groups,and in one to one situations,of my colour in relation to others.(Dalal
2002, p. 219)
By stating that he was not usually aware of a person’s ‘race’, Dalal’s super-
visor was implying that there was nothing significant of which to be aware.
By raising the issue Dalal could be seen as presenting indications of an
internal problem and the intimations of a paranoid state. Given the anxiety
for any trainee under continuous assessment, this semi-conscious implica-
tion by the white supervisor of internal difficulties in the black trainee must
be hard to manage.
Dalal offers an alternative understanding of this difference in perspective:
The white, by virtue of their colour, is in the mainstream and near the centre,
whilst the black is marginalized and nearer the edge. The closer one is to the
edge, with the resultant danger of going over, the more one is aware of the
circumstances that put one there – colour. Meanwhile, those at the centre have
a vested interest (often unconscious) in maintaining the status quo by blanking
out the colour dynamic altogether: if it does not exist in the first place then it
cannot be changed.Thus, the difference between the feelings elicited in me and
my supervisor are not just because of our asocial histories,but to do with where
we are located in the field of power relations. (Dalal 2002, p. 219)
Elsewhere Dalal refers to this image of the centre and the edges.What those
who are marginalized, he says:
......areforced to do as a strategic necessity,isto...assert a new essentialism
at the margins – the point about being at the margins is that the centre finds it
hard to hear, partly because of psychological distance, and partly because what
is being said is inconvenient. And so the marginalized are forced to shout until
hoarse and can end up sounding shrill....(Dalal 1998, pp. 206–7, italics in
original)
Over the last few years we have been working within the British Associ-
ation of Psychotherapists (BAP) to explore matters of ‘race’ and equity in
the organization. In a Working Note Andrew Cooper wrote the following:
We think that for black and ethnic minority people the experience of racism
tends to be pervasive in one form or another – but this does not mean that this
is the whole of what their lives consist of! It is a dimension of personal and social
experience. But a difficulty arises when they try to give voice to this aspect of
their experience, because ‘white’ Anglo-Saxon people and institutions usually
do not, or cannot, hear and simply take it seriously for what it is – one very
important matter that needs understanding, recognition,and thought.We think
the consequence of such a failure of response is predictable, and inevitable – a
36 BRITISH JOURNAL OF PSYCHOTHERAPY (2008) 24(1)
redoubled effort to make others ‘take in’ the seriousness of the issue, which can
in turn lead to a more strenuous effort to renounce the (now even more)
unpalatable communication. The stage is set for systematic misunderstanding
and a culture of defensive ‘race relations’ – black people have a chip on their
shoulder and white people are racist. (Cooper 2005)
So, Whose Problem Is It?
It would appear, then,that for all the overt intentions of the white members
of analytic institutions,equal opportunity policies and our conviction that we
welcome all, there is indeed a problem for black trainees and, therefore, for
potential applicants and patients. Legally at the very least, this means that
there is a problem for the institutions. The Race Relations (Amendment)
Act of 2002 implies that training organizations such as ours are required to
show evidence that we are making serious attempts to address the reasons
why so few black and minority ethnic people wish to join us.The fact that our
institutions have charitable status means that Association Objectives usually
include statements about promoting, providing and increasing psychoana-
lytic psychotherapy to relieve mental distress for the benefit of the public.The
reality of a twenty-first-century British ‘public’ is one of many colours and
cultures, so the lack of wide representation of that society within this pro-
fession raises worrying questions.
But these are legal, formal requirements. As a white individual I can take
up a number of different positions towards this but the answer to the
question ‘Whose problem is it anyway?’ is that, however unfortunate we
might think it that so few black people want to train or come into analysis,
and however uncomfortable the experience of any black trainee, it is actu-
ally the black person’s problem. It may be that the cause of the problem is
located with the white centre,but the problem is carried by those at the black
margins.So,as a white person, why should I worry? I’m OK!Any motivation
for me to address the matter can only be rooted in social conscience, a need
to increase numbers of trainees and potential patients or a desire to assuage
uncomfortable feelings of guilt and shame.
What several of the extracts quoted above suggest is that we are talking
here about an interaction, a relationship between the marginalized and
those at the centre, between those struggling to have their voice heard and
those who fail to respond. The asymmetrical relationship relates to differ-
entials in terms of power but it is a relationship, and this deafness has
implications for both.
As Cooper points out, the experience of racism as a particular dimension
of life for a black individual is one which ‘“white” Anglo-Saxon people and
institutions usually do not, or cannot, hear and simply take it seriously for
what it is – one very important matter that needs understanding, recognition’.
Given that our work is to hear, take seriously, recognize, understand and
respond to all sorts of difficult matters,how can we understand this particu-
HELEN MORGAN 37
lar deafness? Why is it that it seems so difficult to have ordinary conversa-
tions together about the matter? Why do we in analytic institutions find it so
hard to apply the talking and listening cure to ourselves?
Returning to Dalal’s discussion, he goes on to say:
The power of ideology is such that the ‘whiteness’ as organizing principle is
unconscious. In other words the white ensign at the centre is invisible, and it is
only the black ensign at the margins that is able to be seen. Thus those at the
centre feel themselves to be innocent, unfairly assaulted from without. (Dalal
1998, pp. 206–7)
The white ensign is painted against a white background and hence is made
invisible.In his paper ‘Notes on white supremacy’,the Jungian analyst James
Hillman writes:‘White casts its own white shadow and casts it into the black’
(Hillman 1986). He goes on to suggest that this very whiteness, this failure to
discern the ensign, this blindness, this lack of shade and colour created by the
urge for supremacy, contains its own problem. For the price of this privilege
is a white-out. Without noticing, the white shadow is projected onto the
black and, as with all projections, something is lost and we are left depleted,
whitewashed.
A Difficult Subject for Thought
In his Preface to the 1988 edition of his book, White Racism, Joel Kovel
argues that:
...Western civilization is saturated, not merely with racism – that is obvious
enough – but with the elementary gesture out of which racism is constructed:
splitting the world in the course of domination. It follows that:
• racism antecedes the notion of race, indeed, it generates the races;
• racism supersedes the psychology of prejudice, indeed, it creates that psy-
chology for its own purposes;
• racism evolves historically, and may be expected to appear in different
phases in different epochs and locales;
• racism cannot be legislated out of existence, since what is put into law
always serves to legitimate the system which generates and is defined by it.
(Kovel 1988, pp. xii–xiv)
These are strong statements but important ones if we are to take on the
ongoing task of recognizing and thinking about the racist thought as it
appears in the mind. The strength of Kovel’s statements underlines the
insidious and pervasive nature of this dynamic and reminds us that we
cannot remove ourselves from it by mere denial or a sort of cheerful self-
imposed blindness.
As the psychology of racism is, Kovel asserts, created by racism, we need
to take care when theorizing about it that we are not reinforcing the
38 BRITISH JOURNAL OF PSYCHOTHERAPY (2008) 24(1)
problem we seek to describe.2The usual psychoanalytic attempts to under-
stand racism lean heavily on the concepts of splitting and projection.
However, we know that just telling a patient that they are projecting has
little real impact. What might make a difference is for the individual to get
to know themselves a little better and face their own shadow. Even better
if they can also get to know the other on whom they are projecting, to
reality test through relationship. Then it becomes more possible for the
projections to be withdrawn. Rather than focusing, therefore, on a theor-
etical understanding of the mechanisms of racism, I am interested in how
difficult ordinary thought and talk about the matter is, how hard it is for
white people to own and think about our own racist thoughts and behavi-
our and to engage with, listen to and seek to understand the experiences
of black and minority ethnic people.
In his book Partisans in an Uncertain World, Paul Hoggett writes:
. . . uncritical thought will not simply be passive but will actively cling to a belief
in the appearance of certain things. It actively refuses, rejects as perverse or
crazy, any view that may contradict it.To think critically one must therefore be
able to use aggression to break through the limitations of one’s own assump-
tions or to challenge the ‘squatting rights’ of the colonizer within one’s own
internal world. (Hoggett 1992, p. 29)
Global colonization by white Western Christian culture has meant that, for
those of us who are defined as belonging to such a culture, we can, if we
choose, avoid external pressure to make that act of aggression that chal-
lenges the ‘squatting rights’ of the internal colonizer.However, not noticing
this figure who lurks in a corner of our internal worlds does not mean he
does not exist. I suggest that failing to attempt the act of aggression to break
into our uncritical thought means that an area of internal life remains
unexamined and that we are the poorer for it.
To think differently about my place in the world and the privileges it has
brought me requires an undoing of a well-laid system of assumptions about
myself, and to break through their limitations is not easy. But, like any
unconscious dynamic, the assumption,the matter taken for granted serves to
limit and deaden the creative life of the psyche. Hoggett introduces
Winnicott’s ideas on creativity as the alternative to compliance and adapta-
tion. Play and creativity imply an internal freedom that allows imagination
to do its work (Winnicott 1974). This is the very opposite of the ‘systematic
misunderstanding and a culture of defensive “race relations” – black people
have a chip on their shoulder and white people are racist’ that Cooper writes
about and which describes the rigid and defensive atmosphere that can so
easily arise when we attempt to talk about this subject. This is not an easy
2. For an important critique of analytic theories of racism, see Dalal 2002.
HELEN MORGAN 39
matter to play with. It raises feelings of guilt, shame, envy, denial and defi-
ance, and a fear of getting it wrong, of saying the unforgivable and of
exposing an internal badness.
According to Bion, whenever two people or two parts of a person are in
relation to each other, the emotional experience that links the two comprise
Love (L), Hate (H) and Knowledge (K).Whereas L and H are rooted more
in the paranoid-schizoid position, K is seen as an aspect of the depressive
position:
The K link is that linkage present when one is in the process of getting to know
the other in an emotional sense, and this is to be clearly distinguished from the
sort of knowing that means giving a piece of knowledge about something or
someone. (Symington & Symington 1996, p. 78)
Many of those interviewed by James-Franklin reported being told that,
because this was depth, analytic work, differences in ‘race’ and colour were
irrelevant. Yet, whenever anyone other than themselves acknowledged the
fact of difference, their experience was one of relief.
Clearly to acknowledge that I am white and you are black does not bring
a new fact into the room and doesn’t necessarily mean a getting-to-know
you in an emotional sense. If that were all then the acknowledgement is
irrelevant. However,because racism ‘saturates’ the political and social back-
drop to our encounter, as Kovel puts it, this acknowledgement is a first step
in recognizing that this fact of difference will have a significant impact on the
business of getting to know each other.This acknowledgement is not blind to
colour but recognizes a difference in experience and hence in vertex or
perspective. Then there is the possibility that these vertices, these perspec-
tives, can be voiced and heard which in turn offers the hope that the more
paranoid–schizoid links of L and H that are always there in racism might be
tempered a little by those of K.
After all, if differences in colour are so irrelevant for depth work, we
might ask why it can be so hard for the black trainee to raise them with white
trainers, supervisors and analysts. The responses reported certainly have a
defensive ring to them as if something uncomfortable is being whitewashed.
To fail to acknowledge difference,to assume colour-blindness leads us into
the realm of –K:
K symbolizes knowledge, and –K is its opposite. It symbolizes not only ignor-
ance, but also a trend to remain actively in ignorance with the adoption of an
attitude in which there is an advantage of avoiding awareness or a disadvantage
to approximating to the truth. (Bion Talamo, Borgogno & Merciai 2000, p. 122)
A Defence Against Racism
Julian Lousada describes two traumatic aspects of racism in his paper ‘The
hidden history of an idea: the difficulties of adopting anti-racism’:
40 BRITISH JOURNAL OF PSYCHOTHERAPY (2008) 24(1)
There are,it seems to me,two primary traumas associated with racism.The first
is the appalling inhumanity that is perpetrated in its name. The second is the
recognition of the failure of the ‘natural’ caring/humanitarian instincts and of
thinking to be victorious over this evil.We should not underestimate the anxiety
that attends the recognition of these traumas. In its extreme form this anxiety
can produce an obsequious guilt which undertakes reparation (towards the
oppressed object) regardless of the price.What this recognition of a profoundly
negative force fundamentally challenges is the comfort of optimism. Being able
to tolerate the renunciation of this idea, and the capacity to live in the presence
of our own positive and destructive thoughts and instincts is the only basis on
which the commitment to change can survive without recourse to fundamen-
talism. (Lousada 1997, p. 41)
For the white liberal the word ‘racism’ itself sets up an immediate accus-
atory tone from which we flinch. Here is the challenge to ‘the back to basics
idea that we are all inherently decent and that evil and hatred belong to others’.
If we are to rid ourselves of this uncomfortable notion that we are not
inherently decent then we need to find the others to whom the evil and
hatred belong. There are those who are blatantly racist and who perform
extreme racist attacks which are alien and abhorrent. Yet I suggest we need
to consider the possibility that the very existence of the extreme racists
means that a container is provided into which the racist self can be
projected.
The Analytic Profession
For the last few years I have been asked to teach some seminars on the
effects of difference in ‘race’ on the supervision process on a course we run
at the BAP. I started researching the matter of how differences in ‘race’,
colour and culture might affect the work of supervision, and was interested
to note that I could find no mention of the topic in the books I read on
supervision in psychoanalytic or Jungian analytic psychotherapy. The only
exceptions were several black therapists who have written on the matter of
racism in psychotherapy and who make reference to their experience as
black supervisors such as Dalal (2002), Davids (1998),Evans Holmes (1992)
and Thomas (1992).
This is in stark contrast to the modern texts on supervision in counsel-
ling and social work where at least one chapter on the issue seems always
to be included. However, on reading some of those chapters in the coun-
selling supervision books I found the majority to take a position of cultural
relativism and, in my view, fail to address how the dynamics of ‘race’ and
racism can be thought about from the perspective of the internal world
of the psyche. It seemed that the deeper the analytic enterprise, the less
the subject is considered of relevance until it is ignored completely in the
analytic texts.
HELEN MORGAN 41
Theory
One explanation put forward for this silence is that psychoanalytic theory
itself is fundamentally Euro-centric and not applicable,therefore, outside its
own white, middle-class world. This is certainly a serious challenge that
needs to be taken on more directly from within the profession. Our theories
do indeed imply that their explanations of the human psyche are universal.
If they offer a model of the mind which is true and valid, then it must be
applicable to all human minds – or what are we saying about the world? Yet
the assumption that the external world and matters of culture, experiences
of racism, differences in social mores and customs have no impact on the
internal world of the individual, results in a certain sterility within the theory
itself, as well as increasing its isolation from more main-stream thought.
Perhaps if the marginalized black voices were to be respected, heard,
debated and thought about, the central theories would become enriched and
developed. Such debate requires a confidence in the robustness of our
theoretical ground that it can be tested rigorously and not merely crumble
beneath external attack and internal angst.
My argument is that the theory is sufficiently robust and helpful and we
need to take care not to abandon the analytic frame. For the inevitable
anxiety and fear of the racist thought and the subsequent shame and guilt
can lead us as white therapists to give up on theory inappropriately when
working with black patients, trainees, supervisees etc. I have explored some
of the issues relating to direct clinical work elsewhere (Morgan 1998, 2002,
2007). Here I want to develop the theme of how this anxiety can get in the
way of good clinical practice in training and supervision.
Case Example – Alan
Due to the complications concerning confidentiality I shall be using two case
examples both of which appear in a paper on race and supervision in the
BAP book, On Supervision: Psychoanalytic and Jungian Analytic Perspec-
tives (Petts & Shapley 2007).The following example is taken from work with
a white supervisee whose patient,Alan, is a man in his forties who was born
in the Caribbean.
When he was 6 years old Alan’s parents came to Britain to find work and
Alan was looked after by his grandmother and two aunts in the Caribbean.
Whilst there were constant phone calls and letters from his parents,because
of the costs of travel he did not see them again till he was sent for aged 13.
Alan did well at school and further education and was now a successful and
well-respected business man.
As the therapy progressed Alan experienced any feelings of dependency
on his therapist as difficult. He always seemed to have good things to replace
any breaks in sessions so they were never missed. The session we were
discussing in supervision referred to the first one after a three-week break.
42 BRITISH JOURNAL OF PSYCHOTHERAPY (2008) 24(1)
Alan was recounting what he had done whilst the therapist was away – which
included a consultation with an astrologist, visiting an alternative practi-
tioner and reading several self-help psychology books – all of which he
praised enthusiastically. The therapist made the interpretation that he was
telling her how well he had done without her and how others had replaced
her so she wasn’t missed because it was hard to acknowledge how aban-
doned he had felt. She then linked this to being left by his parents when he
was young, and the replacement of his mother by his grandmother and aunts.
Alan became angry, pointing out that what had happened to him was very
common amongst his generation in the Caribbean, and that it was the failure
of the therapist to understand his culture that had led her to interpret it as
a problem for him.
Under this attack the supervisee abandoned her initial thought and her
thinking became paralysed. Alan’s spoken accusations matched her anxiety
that she could be identified with the abusive colonizer, and for the moment
she was no longer the therapist trying to make sense of her patient’s inner
world. It was as if she feared to maintain an analytic stance from an anxiety
that an interpretation would be somehow to pathologize a whole people and
an entire generation. She moved instead to the apparent safety of anthro-
pology and thus lost the task of the analytic work.
It is certainly true that socio-political imbalances resulting from coloniza-
tion and slavery has meant large numbers of people migrating to the colonial
nation to seek work and a better life, and having to leave behind young
families to the care of family elders. Nevertheless, the fact that this was
perfectly understandable and on a large scale, and that the individual was
well cared for by known and loved relatives,does not mean that there was no
loss for the individual child, or that the surfacing of internal, unconscious
consequences in the transference cannot be interpreted.
Alan’s response required that she heard his raising of the matter of
difference, his need to assert that he was not alone and that there was a
problem of understanding between them. However,she also needed to stay
with her interpretation.What looked like a respect of the view of the ‘other’
was, in fact, to fail to face the underlying questions raised by ‘otherness’, to
allow the patient to prevent the therapist functioning analytically as well as
to desert the responsibility to the inner world of the patient. The dynamic
behind this abandonment of the analytic endeavour was the arousal of the
therapist’s fear of her own racism and hence of feelings of shame and guilt.
Ironically, of course,the consequence for the black patient was that he would
receive a second-rate therapy.
Writing on the general point Fakhry Davids says:
. . . please note how easy it is for one, in an apparent attempt to keep an open
mind, to embark on a road that leads inevitably, I think,to a position of cultural
relativism that is clinically sterile. Today there is a genre of psychoanalytic
writing, critical of our mainstream theories for their ethnocentrism, that
HELEN MORGAN 43
advance instead alternative conceptualizations claiming to allow for greater
cultural variation...aremeant to alert the clinician to the dangers of inadvert-
ently overlooking the influence of culture, and to provide theories that are
‘fairer’ to the psyche of the culturally different patient. I would suggest that such
approaches have the diagnosis wrong. The problem of ignoring the patient’s
cultural background is not so much due to defective theory as a to a reluctance
on the part of the analyst to acknowledge the patient’s difference,which in turn
reflects a fear of entering the domain of internal racism – both analyst’s and
patient’s – within the treatment situation. Providing one is willing to enter this
terrain, I find that existing psychoanalytic theories are perfectly adequate for
work with the culturally different. (Davids 1998, p. 7)
‘Providing one is willing to enter this terrain of internal racism,’ says Davids.
Easily said and yet, apparently, so very difficult to do.
Practice
On most aspects relating to clinical work we would expect that those who
might be regarded as the elders of the profession who act as therapists,
teachers and supervisers to be at the stage of greater competence than the
trainee, especially at the start of their training. However, when someone
white is,for example, supervising someone black, the latter is likely to be far
more knowing regarding issues of ‘race’ and racism.
The white supervisor, training analyst or seminar leader, dwelling as they
do at the centre, is more likely to have blanked out the colour dynamic
altogether. Racist thoughts are unlikely to have been the subject of a train-
ing analysis and, indeed, the shadow aspect of the fact of having undergone
an analysis is that the individual can maintain an internal position as if they
were now free from the primitive defences of splitting and projection. It is
the myth of the complete analysis.
We now have a reversal of the expected situation where the trainee is
more aware, more knowing, more competent than the trainer. If the white
individual does not allow the possibility that they might have racist thoughts
and assumes that there is nothing to be explored, nothing interior to them-
selves to be analysed, no problem of difference since difference is ignored,
then any difficulties have to be held by the black trainee or the black patient
for whom the consequences may well be destructive.
Should the white supervisor or teacher be unconscious, regarding his or
her internal racism, for the trainer/trainee pair to develop and for learning
for both to take place, the trainer needs to become conscious that, on this
matter, they do not know. Even this apparently small move is not easy.
Because they are so hard to notice,acknowledge and hold, any racist feelings
may be rejected from a need to maintain a benign sense of self.If the internal
racist organization is denied it cannot be confronted. Add to this a power
44 BRITISH JOURNAL OF PSYCHOTHERAPY (2008) 24(1)
dynamic inevitable in any training relationship, the pressure to sustain the
place of knowing is considerable.To sustain such a position the unconscious
incompetence becomes projected onto either the black supervisee or the
black patient. By perceiving the failure to be in the other,the internal racist
remains unchallenged and this particular organization within the super-
visor’s mind is reinforced.
Working with Racism
Regardless of how we view the origins of the divisions into ‘races’ and the
function of colour racism within Western culture,according to most analytic
literature on the subject, the racist thought itself can be regarded as a
defence – essentially of splitting and projection.When we fail to observe and
explore these racist thoughts which will occur, we may succeed in avoiding
the ‘bad’ thought we do not wish to own and thus maintain a degree of
psychic comfort, but we also miss a deeper conflict that the racist thought is
a defence against.Thus the observation of and response to difference can be
considered in ordinary transference terms.Indeed, the negative influences of
racist responses can be thought about as a potentially useful and important
route into transference material.
Dorothy Evans Holmes in her paper ‘Race and transference in psycho-
analysis and psychotherapy’ considers the way that references to race can
give access to transference reactions in the therapeutic situation:
Often it is said that patients’ racist remarks in therapy constitute a defensive
shift away from more important underlying conflict and that the therapist
should interpret the remarks as defence and resistance. Whilst it is the thera-
pist’s ultimate aim to help the patient understand the protective uses of
defences, this aim can best be achieved only after the defences are elaborated.
(Evans Holmes 1992, p. 3)
When a black therapist is working with a white patient, it is likely that the
racist defences for the patient will take subtle and secret forms. Because of
the guilt attached to these responses,the patient will work hard to keep such
feelings from surfacing openly in the room, and indeed are likely to be
swiftly suppressed even as they surface in the mind.What the white therapist
might be able to contribute to thinking about this matter – both theoretically
and clinically – is personal experience of both the racist thought and of the
desire to be rid of it. Of the feelings of shame and guilt which keep us from
acknowledging what arises in our minds.
Case Example – David
A black member of a supervision group was working with a white man,
David. David, whilst insisting that the therapy was very helpful to him, was
HELEN MORGAN 45
consistently late and missed sessions from time to time. The therapist fre-
quently reported feeling irritated and despairing in her countertransference,
and when he began saying that maybe it was time to end therapy, she
recognized her own wish for him to leave. During the reporting of a session
I found myself wondering whether this therapist was able to do the work,
and I had the thought that another (white) member of the group would have
been a better ‘fit’ for this patient, that she would have provided a better
container for him. Behind these thoughts was a sense of disparagement of
the therapist. I was seeing the therapist as inferior,not up to the job,and that
this particular therapeutic pairing would not be able to work.
As the conversation developed I became increasingly aware of this
thought. Hot on its heels was a feeling of shame when I realized my dispar-
agement was connected to her blackness.This was ‘racist’ and I wanted to be
rid of it from my mind. I began to notice that I,as well as the other members
of the group, was beginning to relate to her in a rather over-positive way,
criticisms were kept to a minimum and much empathy was being offered for
her having to work with this ‘difficult’ patient.It all felt slightly patronizing,
and there was an uncomfortable sense that we were heading for a sort of
collusion whereby David would, sooner or later, leave therapy.
Initially, when David started his therapy, the matter of difference of colour
between them was raised and he was keen to assure his therapist that this
was no problem for him. Unless the racist defences are very open and
conscious (in which case a white patient is unlikely to start therapy with a
black therapist in the first place), anything but this denial of a problem is
unlikely. But conscious denial does not mean that something does not exist.
There may be an idealization and/or a denigration of the blackness of the
therapist. Guilt, shame and the rejection of shadow aspects result in the
attempt to turn away from, to disown such disagreeable, ‘bad’ feelings and
thoughts.
What the white supervisor may be able to offer here is a recognition and
acknowledgement through identification with the patient’s situation. In the
supervision session my own countertransference reactions needed to be
understood as mirroring the contempt of the patient. It was the therapist
who was no good. She needed to be got rid of by lateness, missed sessions
and eventually giving up altogether. My thought that she was inadequate as
a therapist was a clue that there was a projection of these unwanted aspects
into her. If I could convince myself that the problem was her and not my
hated and hateful feelings, then she could be rejected and I would be
relieved of feeling badly.
Once this thought could be allowed to surface,we could begin to think.We
began to see that David’s dismissal of the therapist and of the work could be
seen as his need to denigrate her as a black woman, and that this hid a
deeper internal conflict. The denigration and the racist defence needed
elaborating before that underlying conflict could be brought to light. In the
46 BRITISH JOURNAL OF PSYCHOTHERAPY (2008) 24(1)
next session the therapist made an interpretation along the lines we had
discussed. Not unexpectedly, David replied that there was no problem, that
her being black was fine with him, was she accusing him of being racist, etc.
The next session he phoned and cancelled. However, he arrived visibly
shaken to the following session. He had started out late and had to run for
the bus but, as he reached the bus stop, the driver – who was black – despite
having seen David coming, closed the doors and pulled away from the bus
stop.David ‘lost it’ and began yelling at the bus, shouting at the driver.What
shook him, in particular, was the raw, racist nature of the insults he heard
himself shouting.
At first David found it difficult to speak about this incident to his therapist
and was clearly overcome with shame at what he had said.The therapist was
able to work with him to surface these feelings and to gather them into the
transference.Again,his shame was excruciating but, seeing that his therapist
was able to withstand these disparaging, attacking thoughts that were now
in the room between them, he gradually was able to allow them to exist.
Complex transference material began to emerge concerning his experience
of a depressed mother who was constantly despised and belittled by his
father and by whom he felt abandoned. Hiding behind his need to hold
his therapist as inferior were his own feelings of worthlessness and self-
disparagement.
None of this is straightforward, of course.Aspects of David’s contempt for
his therapist related to gender rather than ‘race’,and we do not know how he
might have been with a black male therapist. The point, perhaps, is that we
are not blank screens as certain facts concerning gender, age, ‘race’, etc. are
clearly visible to each other. Nor do we come blankly to face such facts
concerning the other, but bring with us personal,familial, social and cultural
baggage to the encounter.
Conclusion
The Macpherson Report following the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry defines
institutionalized racism as:
the collective failure of an organization to provide an appropriate and profes-
sional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin. It can
be detected in processes, attitudes and behaviours which amount to discrimi-
nation through unwitting prejudice, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping
which disadvantages ethnic minority people. (MacPherson 1999)
Of course the effects of such discrimination on the black individual is
harmful and enough in and of itself to warrant any organization struggling to
face full on its own institutionalized racism.What I have argued here is that,
alongside concern for the black member of such an organization, we should
HELEN MORGAN 47
place a recognition that ‘prejudice, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping’
also do damage to its white members and impoverish both theory and
practice.
It is important to note the use of the term ‘unwitting’ in Macpherson’s
definition. In their presentation to the IAAP Congress on racism in Brazil in
Cape Town, 2007, Paula and Walter Boechat quoted from a publication by a
group of journalists and sociologists on their research on racism in Brazilian
society (Folha de S. Paulo 1998).They called their results ‘Racismo Cordial’
or ‘Cordial Racism’.This struck me as a rather apt term for the sort of racism
that exists within our institutions. Cordial, but no less deadly for that.
I return to Kovel’s word ‘saturate’ which is a good one for the way in
which racism has penetrated every corner of the society into which we are all
born.There is no position one can take which is outside it.If we acknowledge
the racist backdrop to our world then we also have to recognize the particu-
lar prejudicial veil which is the inheritance of all white members of this
society.The veil may well be one of cordiality but it has guilt,shame and envy
woven into it, complicated as it is by the hatred of the internal racist.It is fear
of such shame which freezes our curiosity about each other and prevents us
from having ordinary conversations about the reality of the external and the
internal divides caused by racism.Yet, only by finding ways of talking to each
other can we gain knowledge of and develop relationship with the other and
with ourselves.As psychoanalytic psychotherapists we know a thing or two
about curiosity and conversation, and I suggest that there is much to gain by
applying this talking cure to ourselves.
References
Bion Talamo, P., Borgogno, F. & Merciai, S. (2000) W.R. Bion: Between Past and
Future. London: Karnac.
Cooper, A. (2005) BAP Internal Working Note, July.
Dalal, F. (1998) Taking the Group Seriously. London: Jessica Kingsley.
Dalal, F. (2002) Race, Colour and the Processes of Racialization: New Perspectives
from Group Analysis, Psychoanalysis and Sociology. London: Brunner-Routledge.
Davids, F. (1998) The Lionel Monteith Lecture, Lincoln Centre and Clinic for
Psychotherapy (unpublished).
Evans Holmes, D. (1992) Race and transference in psychoanalysis and psycho-
therapy. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 73, 1: 1–11.
Folha de S. Paulo (1998) Racismo cordial, second edn. Sao Paulo: Ática.
Hillman, J. (1986) Notes on white supremacy: essaying an archetypal account of
historical events. In Spring, pp. 29–58.
Hoggett, P. (1992) The art of the possible. In Partisans in an Uncertain World: The
Psychoanalysis of Engagement. London: Free Association Books.
James-Franklin, M. (2004) Processes of Adaptation in Black Trainee Therapists.
Unpublished dissertation, MSc in the Psychodynamics of Human Development,
Birkbeck College, University of London.
Kovel, J. (1988) White Racism: A Psychohistory. London: Free Association Books.
Lousada, J. (1997) The hidden history of an idea: the difficulties of adopting anti-
racism. In E. Smith (ed.),Integrity and Change, Mental Health in the Market Place,
pp. 34–48. London: Routledge.
48 BRITISH JOURNAL OF PSYCHOTHERAPY (2008) 24(1)
Lowe, F. (2006) Racism as a borderline issue: the avoidance and marginalization of
race in psychotherapy. In Foster et al. (eds), Difference: An Avoided Topic in
Practice, pp. 43–60. London: Karnac.
Macpherson, W. (1999) The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry: Report of an Inquiry by Sir
William Macpherson of Cluny. London: HM Stationery Office.
Morgan, H. (1998) Between fear and blindness: the white therapist and the black
patient. BAP Journal 34, 3: 48–61.
Morgan, H. (2002) Exploring racism. Journal of Analytical Psychology 47, 4: 567–81.
Morgan, H. (2007) The effects of difference of ‘race’ and colour in supervision. In
A. Petts and B. Shapley (eds), Supervision: Psychoanalytic and Jungian Analytic
Perspectives. London: Karnac.
Petts, A. & Shapley,B. (eds) (2007) Supervision: Psychoanalytic and Jungian Analytic
Perspectives. London: Karnac.
Rustin, M. (1991) Psychoanalysis, racism and anti-racism. In The Good Society and
the Inner World, pp. 57–84. London: Verso.
Symington, J. & Symington, N. (1996) The Clinical Thinking ofWilfred Bion. London:
Routledge.
Thomas, L. (1992) Racism and psychotherapy: working with racism in the consulting
room – an analytic view. In J. Kareem and R. Littlewood (eds), Intercultural
Therapy. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications.
Winnicott, D.W. (1974) Playing and Reality. London: Penguin.
HELEN MORGAN 49
