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Ata: Journal of Psychotherapy Aotearoa New Zealand 31
e enigma of unintentional racial
microaggressions: Implications for the
profession of psychotherapy
Malik McCann
P, A
Keith Tudor
P P, A U T, A
Abstract
Unintentional racial and cultural microaggressions towards indigenous and minority peoples
while injurious to recipients, are characteristically not recognised by the perpetrator and
when challenged, are oen not able to be met with curiosity or the capacity for reflection. The
difference in racial and cultural realities exposed in these encounters can lead to breakdowns
in recognition and polarising dynamics which perpetuate structural oppression. They also
represent missed opportunities for greater understanding of the ways socially sanctioned
norms, assumptions and beliefs reinforce the implicit positioning of self and other as racial
and cultural objects. Through consideration of the societal, interpersonal and intrapsychic
aspects of the first author’s experience through heuristic enquiry (supervised by the second
author), we consider unintentional racial microaggressive encounters and challenges as the
observable outcome of implicit racialisation into colonial society.This article presents some
discussion and implications for the discipline or profession of psychotherapy.
Whakarāpopotonga
Ko te whiu kōrero whakaiti, kaikiri ki tangata taketake ki iwi iti ahakoa ehara koirā tē
whāinga e kīia ana kāre taua tangata e kite i tērā āhuatanga ā, inā tohua atu kāre tonu e kite
e whakaae i tōna kaikiritanga. Ko ngā rerekētanga ā-iwi me ngā tikanga ahurea ka puta ake i
ēnei tūmomo āhuatanga te huarahi whakawhānui ake i te kūare ngā mahi wehewehe, ā me
te mau tonu o ngā whakarite whakaiti. He take whakatakaroa anō hoki ēnei i te kitenga
McCann, M., & Tudor, K., (2024). The enigma of unintentional racial microaggressions: Implications for the
profession of psychotherapy. Ata: Journal of Psychotherapy Aotearoa New Zealand, 27(1), 31-56. hps://doi.
org/10.24135/ajpanz.2024.03
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32 Ata: Journal of Psychotherapy Aotearoa New Zealand
The enigma of unintentional racial microaggressions
tikanga noho hāpori, ngā whakaaro mau ngā whakapono whakahōhonu i tōna me ō ētahi
atu tuakiritanga. Mai i ngā whakaarohanga hāpori o te kaituhi tuatahi, ō ōna ake wheako
whaiaro ā-tinana, ā-hinengaro (ko te kaituhi tuarua nei te kaihautū) ka āta whakaarohia ēnei
momo whakaititanga, werohanga ko te hua o te kaikiritanga e tauna ana te porihanga taea te
kitea e puta ake ana. Ko tā tēnei tuhinga he hora kaupapa whakawhitiwhitinga kōrero me
ngā whakatūpatotanga mā te roopū whakaora hinengaro.
Keywords: racial microaggressions; racism; psychosocial issues; implicit racialisation;
cultural competence; decolonisation; colonisation; implicit bias; unconscious bias.
Introduction
Microaggressions are defined as “the identifiable outcomes of racism, whether conscious or
unconscious, and are brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioural, or environmental
indignities that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults
toward people of colour” (Sue et al., 2007, p. 273). In the landmark paper “Racial
microaggressions in everyday life: and their implications for clinical practice”, Sue and
colleagues (2007) popularised this term and its taxonomy as speaking to the spectrum of
overt to covert forms of racism as experienced by minorities in contemporary society.
Research on microaggressions tends to focus specifically on covert, subtle, unconscious
and “out of awareness” forms of racism, i.e., “micro-insults”, which Sue et al. (2007) define as
“communications that convey rudeness and insensitivity and demean a person’s racial
heritage or identity” (p. 274), and “microinvalidations” as “characterised by communications
that exclude, negate, or nullify the psychological thoughts, feelings, or experiential reality of
a person of colour” (p. 274).The introduction of the term racial microaggression has resulted
in a proliferation of research and academic literature over the ensuing years in a range of
disciplines with some interest from psychoanalysis (Fleischer, 2017; Pacheco, 2021; Taffel,
2020). The significance of this concept and the body of work it has produced is that it has
foregrounded the voice of minority experiences of this phenomenon, thereby creating a
distinctive picture of the themes, dynamics and tensions characteristic to the microaggressive
encounter.
A dilemma commonly identified in the dynamics of racial microaggressions is the clash
of racial realities (Sue, 2008a). Sue (2003) states that subtle racism is “more problematic,
damaging, and injurious to persons of colour than overt racist acts” (p. 48) precisely because
they are insidious and oen leave the recipient questioning themselves (Fleischer, 2017; Sue,
2008), while perpetrators tend not to view themselves as racist or capable of racist behaviour
(Sue, 2008) and, if anything, perceive racial microaggressions to cause minimal harm (Sue,
2007).
Part of the nature of this phenomenon is that interracial conversations about race and
racism can bring deep anxiety, defensiveness, fear, guilt, shame, thought paralysis and
aggression for all parties, resulting in rupturing impasses (Dalal, 2012; Sue, 2005; Taffel,
2020). Because microaggressions are oen invisible to perpetrators, who are likely to react
defensively when challenged, recipients oen feel put in a bind and pressured to stay silent
(Sue, 2007). This relational dynamic ensures that the beliefs and aitudes expressed by
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Malik McCann and Keith Tudor
perpetrators in microaggressive moments remain largely unexamined and, therefore,
unprocessed and unchanged.
In societies with a history of colonialism and oppression of indigenous and minority
peoples, subsequent generations are prone to inherit the racial bias of their forebears (Sue,
2005). Greenwald and Krieger (2006) suggest that unconscious bias produces “behaviour
that diverges from a person’s conscious or endorsed beliefs or principles” (p. 951) and, thus,
can sit alongside the subject’s conscious beliefs in social justice (Burkard & Knox, 2004).
Furthermore, individuals oen “display implicit aitudes that appear more concordant
with their general cultural milieu than with experiences of their individual upbringing”
(Rudman, 2004, p. 80). Research confirms the widespread existence of unconscious racism
in well-intentioned progressives (Dovidio & Gaertner, 2004); thus, the assessment of
whether a racist act has occurred is most accurately identified by the marginalised(Jones,
1997; Keltner & Robinson, 1996).
The research on which this article is based has its origins in a racial microaggression
experienced by the first author, which, eventually, led to her conducting a heuristic enquiry
into this, supervised by the second author (McCann, 2022). From that research, the authors
have published one article that focused on the psychodynamics of racial microaggressions,
specifically with regard to the social unconscious (McCann & Tudor, 2022), and have wrien
another that focuses on the heuristic process of (re-)discovering the racial enactments and
unconscious associations the microaggression represented (McCann & Tudor, 2024). This
article focuses on the implications of this research for the profession of psychotherapy,
introducing this by positioning the first author (who is the first person “I”, “me”, “my” and
“myself” in this article), and acknowledging the context of the research. This is followed by
some comments on racism wrien with a psychodynamic lens.
Positioning
I (Malik) identify as a mixed heritage Aotearoa New Zealander. The first generation born in
Aotearoa New Zealand on my Father’s Irish side, and the second generation on my Mother’s
Niuean, Samoan, Chinese side, I am phenotypically brown. In multicultural societies such
as Aotearoa New Zealand, prescribed assumptions of ethnicity are oen rigid, and don’t take
into consideration the complexities, evolution and fusion of shiing self-identified or
mixed ethnic affiliations (Bryce, 2020; Keddell, 2006). On a Venn diagram (Venn, 1880) I
would place myself somewhere between Western and Pasifika cultures, overlapping in parts
but not fully fiing essentialised identity constructs of either of my cultures. I feel most
accurately positioned in-between these cultural worlds, in a third space.
It was through the focus on social and cultural issues in a predominantly psychodynamic
psychotherapy training that I became curious to my own social and cultural conditioning
and to recognise the impact that essentialised cultural constructs and normative racism in
the form of microaggressions have had on my own internalised racialisation and of my
position in the wider world. I began to recognise how I had been conditioned to accept
normative assumptions and behaviours in the form of racial and cultural microaggressions,
to override my emotional responses, and to leave them unspoken. Over time, I began to pay
aention to my internal experience when I felt culturally wounded or unsafe and to
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34 Ata: Journal of Psychotherapy Aotearoa New Zealand
The enigma of unintentional racial microaggressions
experience the complex mix of anger, hurt, confusion, paralysis and shame that would arise
when microaggressions occurred.
I don’t doubt that the psychotherapy education/training environment — or, at least, the
one I experienced — genuinely aims to provide cultural safety, embrace non-Western
worldviews, and practice the cultural competence it advocates. I recognise that my cohort
and the teaching staff generally and consciously held egalitarian values, and I appreciate
having had the space to explore racial and cultural dynamics as well as our historic and
socio-cultural context during training. I began to trust that this environment would support
challenging conversations about race and culture.
Over the course of training, I began at times to address microaggressions as I encountered
them, seeking to decolonise my own mindset from the paern of silent complicity and
accompanying shame I had recognised as part of my own social conditioning. I also felt a
responsibility to raise awareness of these issues with my peers, who might one day work
with clients like myself in clinical practice.
However, and consistent with existing research on microaggressions, I found that
confronting these issues, however delicately, oen led to defensive responses which
foreclosed further reflection or discussion. I experienced a troubling dissonance between
the cultural competence and inclusivity to which training environments aspire, and the
actual practice of these ideals in the moment when microaggressive tensions arise.
Sue (2007) highlights the Catch-22 of responding to microaggressions, the “damned if
you do, and damned if you don’t” dilemma. While challenging microaggressions does not
oen lead to reciprocal reflection or deeper understanding, not challenging them reinforces
paerns of accommodation and silence in recipients and further reifies and normalises
damaging beliefs and prejudicial behaviours, not only for those who are directly involved,
but for all who witness such interactions.
Coming into the original research (for my Master’s dissertation), I wanted to find words
to voice these experiences and to understand my own complex internal process in response
to microaggressions. I also wanted to understand how, in a discipline in which understanding
unconscious dynamics were a key focus and conscious egalitarian beliefs prevailed, there
was such strong resistance to considering other cultural or racial perspectives during
microaggression interactions — and/or for reciprocal reflection on the unconscious
relational dynamics that might be at play in these interactions.
Armed with these questions, I chose a heuristic self-search methodology for my
Master’s dissertation on which this article is based (McCann, 2022). Heuristic research is
a qualitative phenomenological research methodology and method, which aims to
discover meaning in significant human experience (Douglass & Moustakas, 1985). It is a
process of exploration which emphasises the interiority of experience (Sela-Smith, 2002).
Douglass and Moustakas (1985) describe it as “a passionate and discerning personal
involvement in problem solving, an effort to know the essence of some aspect of life
through internal pathways of the self” (p. 39). In the heuristic process the researcher’s
aention “is focused inward on feeling responses of the researcher to the outward
situation” (Sela-Smith, 2002, p. 59), though Tudor (2023) argues that heuristic research can
and should also face outward. In any case, heuristic research requires that the researcher
experiences or has experienced the subject under enquiry in a vital way, and that new
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Malik McCann and Keith Tudor
understanding discovered through the heuristic process result in self-transformation
(Moustakas, 1990).
Sela-Smith (2002) speculates that it is not the thinking-observing self, but rather the I-who-
feels who is experiencing the feeling that provides access to the aspects of the tacit dimension of
nonverbal thought. This ability to reconstruct tacit knowledge to fit new experiences as they are
felt and given meaning is particularly pertinent with regard to this present topic. It also
highlights the dilemma of the dynamics of microaggressions. In other words, it is not the fact
that microaggressions occur — in fact, we suggest that they are an inevitable outcome of living
in a colonial society — it is that the assumptions, stereotypes, and, ultimately, the beliefs they
embody are not able to be reflected on; and, that this being so especially in relationship, we
wonder how implicit social conditioning can be examined in order to reconstruct tacit
knowledge in a way that aligns with one’s conscious values. This wondering offers the first
implication for psychotherapy, which is the focus of this article, that, as a reflective practice,
psychotherapy needs to be able to examine and to help clients examine social constructions and
conditioning precisely in order to make tacit knowledge explicit.
While the primary focus of this introduction is on the positionality of the first author, I
(Keith), the second author, also have a position with regard to the first author (academic
supervisor and, now, colleague), and to racial microaggressions — as a participant;
sometimes, no doubt, as a perpetrator or bystander; hopefully, more oen, as a facilitator of
the processing of such transactions and of some repair of ruptures caused. As a practitioner
(a health care provider), supervisor, educator/trainer, and academic, and especially as one
holding certain privileges, I consider it important to name such positioning, a view I have
explored in a number of publications and presentations Tudor (2021, 2023, 2024b).
Context
In Aotearoa New Zealand, the colonial foundations of our prevailing social order continue
to resonate through our systems, social and political structures, and interpersonal
engagements. Initially, relations between Māori and Pākehā were characterised by trade
and diplomacy. However, these interactions deteriorated into unjust treatment of Māori as
conflicts over resources and power escalated (Barnes & McCreanor, 2019). Despite the
existence of foundational documents such as He Whakaputanga (The Declaration of
Independence, 1835) and Te Tiriti o Waitangi (1840), which outlined the terms of agreement
between Māori and the Crown, Māori endured ongoing prejudicial treatment, cultural
oppression, and marginalisation, which escalated aer the signing of Te Tiriti. The Crown’s
commitments to the protection of Māori interests and self-governance, as outlined in these
agreements, were largely disregarded for over a century (Houkamau et al., 2017; Taonui,
2012).
Before the British arrived in Aotearoa in 1769, Europeans had a long history of conquest
and colonisation (Waswo, 1996). By that time, racist and Eurocentric beliefs were deeply
entrenched in the British Empire, which had developed complex justifications for
colonisation, including the supposed duty to spread Christianity and civilization to what
were deemed “heathen” and “savage” peoples (Waswo, 1996). This “racial worldview”
facilitated an unequal distribution of political and economic power (Lovchik, 2018, p. 3).
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36 Ata: Journal of Psychotherapy Aotearoa New Zealand
The enigma of unintentional racial microaggressions
The term “new racism” or “cultural racism”, originally coined by Barker (1981), has
been used to describe the shi from assumptions of superiority regarding perceived
biological differences based on race, to prejudice and discrimination based on cultural
differences between ethnic or racial groups (Barker, 1981; Haenga-Collins & Tudor, 2021;
Hopkinson, 2020). Inherent in the complex history of colonial Aotearoa New Zealand is
the deeply entrenched normalisation of negative stereotypes of firstly Māori and later
Pasifika people and culture(s), and a privileging of the Eurocentric worldview. Racist
beliefs were normalised in the general population (McCreanor, 1999), becoming what
Fanon (1952) terms myths, which became self-perpetuating. In his historical overview of
Māori/ Pākehā relations, McCreanor (1999) notes split constructs of ”good Māori”, i.e.,
“those who fit successfully or unobtrusively into Pākehā society” (p. 42) and “bad Māori”,
i.e., “those who protest, agitate or fail in Pākehā society” (p. 42). This discursive flexibility
provided the means to label Māori selectively depending on their level of compliance to
Western norms, exerting pressure on Māori to assimilate (McCreanor, 1999). The active
dismantling of Māori culture, confiscation of land, negative profiling and second-class
citizenship under the guise of civilisation and “progress”: resulted in widespread
displacement, economic disadvantage, psychological trauma, and transgenerational
consequences for Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand’s colonised society (Mutu, 2019;
Shepherd & Woodard, 2012).
Pasifika peoples had varying experience of colonisation and European intervention in
their own homelands, exposing them to assumptions of a binary racial, ethnic, and spiritual
hierarchy which favoured the Western world view before their arrival in Aotearoa. In the
1950s and 1960s, access to immigration was opened up to Pacific people as demand for
cheap labour increased, resulting in an influx of Pasifika to Aotearoa New Zealand (Phillips,
2005). However, in the 1970s, when economic conditions deteriorated, scapegoating and
stigmatisation of Pacific peoples as a drain on the economy was touted by politicians and
reinforced through the media (Loto et al., 2006). Populist opinion regarded Pacific Islanders
as taking the jobs of New Zealanders and they were blamed for the deterioration of inner-
city suburbs, and for problems of law and order (Spoonley, 2011). Between 1974 and 1980,
many Pacific Islanders with short-term work visas were subjected to invasive “dawn raids”
by the police, despite the fact that it was European migrants who were more frequently
working on expired visas (Pearson, 2021). At this time, Pasifika were objectified as the
scapegoat for the ills of society (Loto et al., 2006). Although Pacific people have been
marginalised in Aotearoa for a much shorter period of time, the outcomes in wellbeing and
socio-economic measures are staggeringly similar to those of Māori. Essentialist constructs
regarding Pacific culture are formed in a similar vein to Māori as uncivilised and inferior in
relation to a civilised and superior Western culture.
As a politically bi-cultural society with a colonial heritage and a multicultural population,
over the past 50 years, this country experienced a gradual cultural and political shi, with
increasing intolerance for racism (McCann, 2022). This shi has prompted significant
efforts to address the impacts of racism on Māori and Pasifika, including the implementation
of affirmative action and equity schemes to create a more diverse workforce (Curtis et al.,
2015); the establishment of policies and practices to combat racism and discrimination
(Houkamau et al., 2017); and initiatives in health and mental health (Harris et al., 2018;
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Malik McCann and Keith Tudor
Talamaivao et al., 2020). Current statistics continue to show stark disparities and poorer
outcomes for Māori and Pasifika across various social wellbeing indicators including health,
mental health, and education (Ministry of Treasury, 2019). Discrimination has been shown
to be an ongoing contributor to inequitable treatment of minorities (Cormack et al., 2018).
Despite well-intentioned efforts to address such inequities, they persist and, in some cases,
have increased (Marriot & Sim, 2015; Walsh & Grey, 2019).
With the election of the more conservative right-wing coalition government in this
country in 2023, there has been a troubling acceleration in the dismantling of policies and
structures designed to address inequities for Māori and Pasifika communities, with a
particular focus on initiatives that empower Māori and Pasifika to address the needs of their
communities in ways that are culturally responsive to these communities. The current
government’s narratives and actions increasingly normalise racism while, at the same time,
denying its existence, thereby contributing to a socio-political climate where such aitudes
are again emboldened. This shi not only undermines hard-won progress but also reflects a
broader trend toward the re-normalisation of racial discrimination and the erosion of
efforts aimed at fostering equity and social justice.
Finding solutions to the outcomes of colonialism and imperial ideology without
addressing the problematic foundational beliefs and frameworks of that ideology may help
to explain why the “progress” towards racial and cultural equity appears to be unravelling so
quickly.
A psychodynamic lens on racism, its origins and purpose
The development of theory and research on racial microaggressions provides both an
observable foundation and language for their exploration. In my research, I used a
psychodynamic lens to explore the deeper processes of unconscious racialisation (i.e., the
internalisation of imperial ideology as it exists in the individual) as they are expressed in
interactions when microaggressions are encountered and challenged. I was — and am —
interested in unconscious racialisation as revealed through exploring what is discovered in
the space between realities which become visible during racial microaggressive encounters.
van Dijk (1993) defines racism as:
a complex system rooted in unequal power relations by ‘race’, ethnicity and
culture that involves shared social cognition (prejudice), as well as social practices
(discrimination), at both the macro level of social structures and the micro level of
specific interaction and communicative events. (p. 47)
Racism is woven into the foundation of our society and is intimately tied to an asymmetry
in power, control and privilege (Dalal, 2002). Despite being socially constructed, race
remains a complex and enduring social dynamic with significant real-life impacts that
must be acknowledged and addressed (DiAngelo, 2018). It has profound implications,
influencing aspects such as survival rates at birth, educational aainment, income levels,
and life expectancy (DiAngelo, 2018).
Psychoanalysis oen uses Kleinian object relations theory (Klein, 1928, 1952) to explain
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The enigma of unintentional racial microaggressions
the intrapsychic mechanisms of racism (Altman, 2000; Balbus, 2004; Caflisch, 2020; Dalal,
2002; Goedert, 2020; Kovel, 1995; Rustin, 1991). Klein’s conceptualisation of the paranoid
schizoid position, the relationship between love and hate, guilt and rage, and the emphasis
on shiing self-states captures some key aspects of racialised dynamics (Rasmussen, 2013;
Stephens, 2020).As Hart (2017) puts it:
The problem of racism and discrimination largely comes from a defensive process of
disavowing one’s unwanted parts, one’s unwanted impulses and insecurities, locating
them in the other person and then hating that other person in order to protect one’s
self. (p. 13)
Being of infantile or psychotic intensity, these projections are highly resistant to
rationality or reason, while the return of projected content threatens annihilation and must
be avoided at all costs (Rustin, 1991). This projection of the disavowed implies that the object
of racism is strongly compelled to contain it through projective identification (Davids,
2006).On the receiving end of racism, introjection or internalisation is the mechanism by
which what is projected comes to reside in the self. This introjection results in the spliing
of the self in the face of the projective gaze of the other (Fanon, 1952; Stephens, 2020).
Many contemporary theorists argue that race is a social construct and that racism has a
sociogenesis (Altman, 2000; Dalal, 2002). Altman traces modern conceptions of “race” to
imperial ideologies formed during the Enlightenment era in 17th and 18th century Europe
(Altman, 2000). This period was characterised by an intellectual shi away from the
authority of the church, with reason increasingly privileged over faith, thus creating a
dichotomy between the rational and the irrational (Altman, 2000). According to Fanon
(1952), colonialism constructs its own discourse and perpetuates itself through creating a
powerful divide between the coloniser and the colonised (Dalal, 2006).Foucault and Gordon
(1980) assert that such social dichotomies create hierarchies that place one category above
another in order to facilitate domination and control. The divide between the “civilized and
rational” Europeans and the “uncivilized and irrational” natives served as the philosophical
justification for European colonialism (Altman, 1995, p. 138). However, Layton (2020)
contends that, within the resulting power asymmetry, subordinate group identities are not
entirely determined by the power of dominant groups. Instead, minorities can forge their
own identities, which may be healthier and more resilient than those conforming to “split
cultural ideals of whiteness” (Layton, 2020, p. 193).
Having set the social, cultural, psychological, and personal context for the original
enquiry and this article, the discussion that follows considers the unconscious aspects of
imperial ideology inherent in cross-cultural relations as manifested in racial microaggressive
dynamics. It critically reflects on the interpersonal nature of such dynamics in and of
perpetrators as experienced by me as a recipient — and a challenger — of microaggressions.
This discussion and the implications for the discipline and profession of psychotherapy is
structured with regard to the socio-political environment; interpersonal racial
microaggressive encounters; and the first author’s intrapsychic process.
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Malik McCann and Keith Tudor
e socio-political environment
The current sociopolitical context in Aotearoa represents an ambivalent picture which
reflects the dissonance between conscious, progressive efforts and unconscious resistance
in cross-cultural dynamics, for instance, as I experienced them in the education/training
environment. Just as standards of cultural competence are defined and expected to be
upheld, social-political initiatives such anti-discrimination legislation and policies are in
place to rectify disparities and increase equity. Yet, here again, there is a dissonance between
the aspirations and actual outcomes of these initiatives. This incongruence suggests that
conscious aempts to address inequities (oen from a Western perspective) are like a band-
aid, addressing the surface but not the root of the injury and trauma. While consciously
striving for progress towards racial and cultural equity, tacit colonial dynamics work
unconsciously to undermine these initiatives, further perpetuating racial and cultural
oppression.
Brown (2001) describes processes of the social unconscious as manifesting in the form of
common assumptions, disavowals, social defences (such as projection, denial and avoidance),
and structural oppression (see also McCann & Tudor, 2022). According to Layton (2006),
“normative unconscious processes” refer to “that aspect of the unconscious that pulls to
repeat paerns that uphold the very social norms that cause psychic distress in the first place”
(p. 241). Layton (2019) also suggests that, in order to recognise and disrupt normative
unconscious processes which keep racial oppression in place, we need to embrace an ethic of
disillusionment. Disillusionment, the undoing of disavowal is a painful process. It first entails
a willingness to become conscious of historical trauma (Salberg & Grand, 2017):
It is a process that renders visible the ways this trauma, alive in intersectional
ghosts, haunts all of our institutions… including the theories and practices of
psychoanalysis…. The alternative is disavowal, turning a blind eye to painful
truths; this lies at the heart of perversion, repetition, and the inability to learn from
experience. (Layton, 2019, p.110)
Steiner (2018) adds to this exploration by using the story of Oedipus to speak to the role
guilt plays in the psychic retreat of idealised illusion in response to trauma. The trauma in
this case may be the reality of racism, and the psychic retreat, an idealised illusion that we
personally do not carry the racialised scars of colonisation in our own psyches.
Disillusionment comes as an awakening via a new event which reveals the disavowed
trauma, where its impact can no longer be denied (Steiner, 2018). Unintentional racial
microaggressive encounters and challenges can be considered a potential awakening event
as an entry point for both recipient and perpetrator to explore reciprocally their disavowed,
implicit social conditioning, racialisation, and its impacts.
Steiner’s (2018) thoughts on the working through of disillusionment can be applied to
the process of working relationally with microaggressions. He asserts that working through
first shame and then guilt is essential in reaching the depressive position, but offers the
caveat that the guilt must be bearable and that responsibility must be taken without denying
the guilt of others (Steiner, 2018). Without this, a return to denial, idealisation, and
omnipotence are inevitable. Steiner also notes the importance of guilt being neither
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The enigma of unintentional racial microaggressions
minimised or exaggerated, but recognised as appropriate to the truth of what happened.
When guilt is faced in this way, it oen turns out to be less severe than one’s unconscious
phantasies imply, and persecution lessens as guilt gives rise to remorse and the wish to make
reparation (Steiner, 2018).
Steiner gives some direction about how this can be worked through in therapy, which
can be applied to working through microaggressive tensions in a therapeutic relationship:
The analyst has not only to help the patient accept his guilt, but also help him to
aribute guilt where it is appropriate, and this may require that the patient is free
to hold the analyst responsible for his errors and enactments. True reparation does
not then recreate ideal objects, but accepts real ones and strengthens the capacity to
discriminate between them. (Steiner, 2018, p. 565)
This implies that, in order to explore the affect, tensions, realities and projections that come
alive in a microaggressive encounter, the therapist must be prepared for this exploration to
be reciprocal and be willing — and able — to be held responsible for their part in the
dynamic, while holding space for the client to explore their own projections and assumptions.
This may lead to reparation based on the acceptance of two fallible subjects rather than
reinforcing idealised objects.
The drive towards cultural equity on a societal, institutional and interpersonal level over
the last four decades may reflect elements of the manic reparation to which Klein (1940)
refers. Perhaps in the rush to repair in order to avoid disavowed feelings of guilt and anxiety
(Dalal, 2012), a true reckoning with the trauma of colonisation and the recognition and
grieving of its imprint on the self has been sidestepped. As Caflisch (2020) puts it:
Reparative guilt can oen become focused more on self than other; inspiring ways of
thinking and acting that…have less to do with repair than with protecting ourselves
from a sense of persecution by others, and by our own thoughts and feelings. (p. 582)
Manic reparation involves a fantasy of omnipotence and erasure (Caflisch, 2020; Klein,
1935, 1940; Mitchell, 2000), a desire “to repair the object in such a way that guilt and loss are
never experienced” (Segal, 1973, p. 95). Caflisch (2020) describes this as a narcissistic goal of
restoring ourselves to “an idealised state of goodness” (p. 591). To get to the reparative guilt
of the depressive position, we must begin to synthesise destructive impulses and feelings of
both love and hate from both sides of this polarity towards each other as integrated objects
(Balbus, 2004; Klein, 1940). Functioning from the depressive state of mind, Caflisch (2000)
suggests that reparative guilt can instead serve as a compass, guiding us to take responsibility
within the limitations of our “ordinariness” (p. 591).
It will necessitate acknowledgement of our own aggression and destructiveness,
without collapsing into a view of ourselves as irredeemably harmful or broken; and
in respect and concern for those we have harmed, maintaining an awareness of their
separateness, rather than identifying with their suffering in an appropriative or
masochistic way. (Caflisch, 2020, p. 582)
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Malik McCann and Keith Tudor
In navigating the microaggressive encounter Caflisch cautions that, as well as acknowledging
our own destructive impulses, we must resist collapsing into a sense of paranoid schizoid
badness or appropriative over-identifying with the one we have harmed. The limits of what
Caflisch refers to as our ordinariness in the context of microaggression dynamics may refer
to accepting that, despite our best conscious intentions, we are not immune from
internalising and perpetuating racism. In accepting this reality, reparative guilt felt from
the depressive position may become the compass that leads us to be more curious and
willing to self-reflect rather than solely project, in the desire for reparation.
Interpersonal racial microaggressive encounters
Morgan (2008) describes the well-established system of assumptions and paerns of
uncritical thought of colonial Western culture with regard to racism which, she asserts,
needs to be aggressively broken through to “challenge the squaing rights of our internal
colonizer” in the unconscious (p.39). Both Hogget (1992) and Sue (2015) discuss how
uncritical thought isn’t passive; rather, it actively resists any views that contradict it. This
resistance can manifest as wilful ignorance, where individuals refuse to acknowledge or
understand the racial realities faced by others (Sue, 2015). The following discussion explores
several interrelated themes about the dynamics of microaggressions, including racialised
ones, the responses to them, and the psychological mechanisms at play in both.
The dynamic of “doer” and “done to” proposed by Benjamin (2004), whereby and
wherein a mutual breakdown in recognition occurs, is useful in considering
microaggressive encounters and challenges. In this interaction, each person feels
victimised or “done to”, rather than seeing themselves as active agents in a shared reality.
This dynamic is evident in microaggressive encounters in which the recipient feels
wronged, and the perpetrator feels aacked or misunderstood. Benjamin notes that this
dynamic is marked by unresolved opposition due to each party’s use of psychological
spliing, the cognitive process of dividing experiences into either/or categories, which
prevents nuanced understanding (2004). In the context of microaggressions, this might
manifest as the perpetrator refusing to acknowledge the harm they’ve caused, while the
recipient feels dismissed or invalidated.
Hoffman (2006) builds on this dynamic, suggesting it can result in a complementary
impasse, a symmetry where both parties struggle with acknowledging the other’s reality.
This struggle for recognition and validation oen leads to an ongoing contest for dominance
and self-regard at the expense of the other (Shaw, 2018). Benjamin (2004) describes this
dynamic as a power struggle where the options seem limited to submission or resistance.
The doer and done to dynamic highlights how microaggressions can trap both parties in a
conflict where neither can fully recognise the other’s reality. Understanding this dynamic
can help find ways to bridge the gap in racial realities that are revealed in these moments
and to work towards more constructive and mutually empathic interactions:
In the doer/done-to mode, being the one who is actively hurtful feels involuntary, a
position of helplessness. In any true sense of the word, our sense of self as subject is
eviscerated when we are with our “victim,” who is also experienced as a victimizing
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object. An important relational idea for resolving impasses is that the recovery of
subjectivity requires the recognition of our own participation. (Benjamin, 2004, p. 11)
In Western society, the doer/done to dynamic occurs in the context of a societal power
asymmetry in which the denial of responsibility by the perpetrator is a normative and oen
socially-sanctioned enactment. This means that the complementary impasse as defined by
Hoffman (2006), in which each party struggles to acknowledge the other’s reality, is weighted
towards imposing the reality of the perpetrator (i.e., the person in the centred or dominant
position) over that of the recipient (i.e., the person who holds the minority position). This
adds further complexity to the doer/done-to dynamic. Yet, even within the context of this
structural power imbalance, if both recipient and perpetrator can hold the other’s reality
alongside their own, it becomes more possible to explore the space between these realities
(i.e., the other’s racialisation and positioning as well as one’s own).
When challenging microaggressions as a recipient, the sense of being perceived as a
“victimizing object” (Benjamin, 2004, p. 11) resonates with my own experience. No maer
how gently this is conveyed, it oen appears to be experienced as an aack on the perpetrator,
triggering various defences which are likely employed unconsciously but which minimise,
dismiss or invalidate my reality.
The invalidation of a recipient’s reality in response to challenging microaggressions can be
understood as a form of gaslighting. This occurs when a person or group sows seeds of doubt in
the recipient, causing them to question their own memory, perception, or judgment (Dorpat,
1996). Gaslighting employs tactics such as denial, misdirection, contradiction, and
disinformation to destabilise the recipient and delegitimise their beliefs (Dorpat, 1996). In the
context of unintentional racial microaggressions, gaslighting acts as a second micro-
aggressive act which compounds the harm of the initial transgression (Rini, 2018; Williams,
2020). Despite the recipient’s aempts to address the issue sensitively, they are oen met with
increased aggression or heightened emotional responses from the offender (Minikel-Lacoque,
2013). This may be considered as a normative unconscious process: a defence enacted to shield
the perpetrator from reflecting on their own disavowed aggression and/or racism.
While perpetrators can acknowledge that racism and even unconscious racism
exist in greater society, there oen appears to be an assumption that the self is
somehow excluded from this equation. This is reflective of Mae-Blanco’s (1988)
asymmetrical and symmetrical bi-logic, the abstraction and manipulation of
similarity and difference relating to the formation of group identities (cited by Dalal,
2002). This sophisticated form of spliing is a common element of modern racism.
Much of the damaging racism in contemporary society is commied by individuals
who acknowledge society’s racism but deny their own (Caflisch, 2020; Dalal, 2002;
Davids, 2011). As Altman (2000) asserts, If we said that racism is ‘out there,’ in racist
society, and not ‘in here,’ in our very psyches, we would be spliing off and denying
an important ‘bad object’ experience between us. (p. 597)
Following on from this form of spliing, which places racism “out there”, microaggressions
can be made from an implicit positioning of the speaker as a protector or rescuer. This
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Malik McCann and Keith Tudor
patronising approach positions the speaker as a protector and the minority as a Victim
(Karpman, 1968) over elusive racist perpetrators who exist “out there”. Despite coming from
a place of protection, this form of over-identification places the speaker in a position of power
who is speaking for a helpless “other”. This can be understood as an interpersonal form of
paternalising benevolence (Gilbert & Tiffin, 2008) whereby, under the conscious narrative of
protection, the speaker unintentionally undermines the other. However, this only reinforces
asymmetrical power relations as the speaker requires the other to be in a Victim state as a
counterpoint to our Rescuer state (Karpman, 1968; Straker, 2018), which can all too easily
switch to becoming the Persecutor. This approach can be differentiated from that of an ally in
that it involves speaking for, as opposed to listening to the minority voice (Tudor, 2024).
Dominance and oppression are hierarchical positions that can be utilised in moments
of conflict by the person in the dominant position to gain, restore and/or maintain
supremacy — and the disavowal of that supremacy (DiAngelo, 2018). Challenging
microaggressions is risky for recipients, as it can provoke anger, defensiveness, and denial
from the perpetrators (DiAngelo, 2012; Sue et al., 2007). This risk is magnified when
challenging individuals in positions of power who may retaliate or abuse their power to
maintain their supremacy (DiAngelo, 2018). Williams (2020) notes there is oen strong
social pressure to endure these encounters without recourse. Morgan (2008) argues that
those in positions of power must recognise their own ignorance about racial issues and
suggests the person of minority race is likely to be far more knowing regarding the issues of
race and racism. For learning to occur, the person in power (such as a therapist) must
acknowledge their lack of understanding and resist projecting their unconscious
incompetence onto others (Morgan, 2008). Relating this to microaggressive encounters and
challenges, when the perpetrator is able to approach these moments from a place of
acknowledging their not knowing, deeper understanding and reciprocal reflection of these
issues for both the recipient and perpetrator become possible.
e first author’s intrapsychic process
Through immersion into the societal and interpersonal aspects of the experience and
phenomenon of racial microaggression, I was able to contextualise my internal experience
in response to both specific and general microaggression dynamics in the context of this
country, and to explore aspects of my own racialisation through identifying and
differentiating the various racial and cultural self-states that come alive in me during
microaggressive encounters.
In microaggressive encounters and challenges I can find myself in the position of both
recipient and perpetrator at different times and in different contexts. In these interactions,
I can experience an internal fragmentation (Dalal, 2002) or, in Fanon’s (1952) words, a
spliing of the self into dual self-states. Alongside the “I who feels” (Sela-Smith, 2002), as the
recipient of a microaggressive encounter, I can experience the awakening of an internalised
gaze of my Pasifika self through Pākehā eyes. Moreover, when challenged as a perpetrator of
microaggressions, I can experience an awakening of an internal gaze of my Pākehā self,
through Pasifika eyes.
The awareness of myself as a Brown Pasifika object as seen through the Pākehā gaze
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reflects aspects of the concepts of double consciousness as described by Du Bois (1903); the
colonial gaze, a term coined by Fanon (1952); and the internal oppressor as described by
Alleyne (2007).
Du Bois (1903) describes this “peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense
of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others” (p. 2), which is felt intra-physically
by the marginalised on whom the disavowed is projected. Fanon (1952) states that one of the
mechanisms of colonial ideology is the day-to-day repetition of myths or stereotypic
assumptions about the other achieved through social discourse. He posits that these myths
become part of the belief system of those they denigrate and are also repeated and
perpetuated by them (Fanon, 1952). The colonised person internalises the colonial gaze,
causing an internal fragmentation, a spliing of the self (Dalal. 2002; Fanon, 1952).As Fanon
(1952) puts it:
In the colonial situation, the black person has to look in the white man’s eyes to give
himself substance, to find himself, but instead of himself he finds the white man’s
perception of himself, in effect he is torn asunder and becomes an object to himself.
(Fanon, 1952, cited in Dalal, 2002, p. 97)
Alleyne’s (2007) concept of “the Internal Oppressor” enhanced my understanding of this
experience, where the struggle involves not only external racial oppression but also psychic
conflicts with an internal adversary awakened by oppressive situations. Voicing my
experience in the microaggressive moment represents a victory over this internal oppressor
and an act of decolonising my psyche from its conditioning to stay silent in these moments.
At times I find myself in the position of the perpetrator of microaggressions, whereby,
despite my own egalitarian beliefs and societal positioning as a mixed heritage minority
woman, I have made an assumption based on essentialist constructs or stereotypes which
has been hurtful to an other. In response, at times, I can find myself enacting defensive
invalidating behaviour as I defend against recognition of the disavowed racism in myself.
Recognising the existence of these “internal racist organisations”, as Davids (2011, p. 37) puts
it, in myself was by far the most difficult self-state to acknowledge and explore over the
course of this research, but also the most important. As Dalal (1998) suggests:
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. (p. 206)
The view of myself as a Pākehā object as seen through Pasifika eyes is akin to the term “white
double consciousness” introduced by DiAngelo (2018), which describes the dual awareness
that white people may experience regarding their racial identity. It reflects the internal
conflict between acknowledging systemic racism and the discomfort or defensiveness that
can arise when faced with the implications of one’s own racial privilege.
This concept supports Sartre & MacCombie’s (1964) observations of the internalisation
of the colonised gaze on white subjectivities: “Today, these black men are looking at us, and
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Malik McCann and Keith Tudor
our gaze comes back to our own eyes” (p. 13).With this statement, Sartre is describing the
interpersonal impact of people of colour on White subjectivities in the context of
decolonisation (Stephens, 2020). Sartre describes how the “shock of being seen” as a White
subject (1964) prompts an experience of White double-consciousness, a sudden and
confronting self-awareness which holds up a mirror to what has been disavowed. This may
foster persecutory guilt, which can feel unbearable and annihilating when, as Caflisch
(2020) puts it, “reparation is felt to be impossible” (p. 578). We suggest that the White double
consciousness self-state is not exclusive to those who are White, and can exist as a Western
double consciousness self-state in any member of Western society who has been exposed
and, therefore, conditioned into Western social norms and implicit colonial ideologies:
When we stop relating to racism as something abstract and outside ourselves, and
begin to reclaim some of our own projections, another possibly irreparable fact
emerges: namely, that the history and present-day realities of racism are inscribed
in our own minds, permeating and shaping our thoughts, feelings, perceptions,
and relationships, at times outside our conscious awareness, or at the edges of this
awareness. (Davids, 2011. p. 132)
The insights from this intrapsychic exploration suggest that racialisation is multi-
dimensional, dynamic, intersubjective, and context-specific.
Relating this sense of double consciousness to Bromberg’s (1996) multiplicity of selves,
a microaggressive encounter and challenge may awaken experiences of double consciousness
in both recipient and perpetrator, bringing awareness to dissociated self-states. These
shiing, racialised self-states represent not only how we are seen by the other but also how
a part of us might view ourselves as racialised objects in the moment of microaggressive
encounter and challenge.
My disavowed self-states constitute the negative stereotypes of both Pasifika and Pākehā.
Layton (2006) defines the regressive force of racial/cultural identity constructs as the
normative unconscious processes pushing for the “right” kind of identity involving both
idealisation and denigration. Internalised negative beliefs, which exist out of conscious
awareness form representations that become introjected and organised into a set of object
relationships and form “bad” cultural objects to whom we counter-identify (Davids, 2011).
Both idealisation and denigration are at play in societally-constructed hierarchical
identities, defining different aspects of self and other to which we identify and counter-
identify, and which we project (Layton, 2006).
Layton (2009) suggests that narcissistic wounding is present on all sides of racialised
enactments, and that it results from aempts to defend against, or align with, societally-
constructed racial/cultural identity norms. Perhaps “I am racist” is disavowed and defended
against by Pākehā in the same way that “I am inferior” is defended against in recipients.
Similarly, a perpetrator may fear recognising or owning that they are racist as a defence
against annihilation, just as a recipient defends against an internalised but disavowed belief
that they are inferior.
The sense of narcissistic injury and responding defensiveness in the dynamic of racial
microaggressions (which we consider occurs in both recipient and perpetrator), are a
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response to the sense of double consciousness experienced in moments of conflicting
interracial engagement by both parties. The view of ourselves we “see” through the other,
might evoke a form of double consciousness which includes projections of the way a part of
us sees disavowed aspects of ourselves, exposing or challenging the racialised traits with
which we identify and counter-identify. In response to the sense that we have become the
“bad” cultural object, we may project these judgements as coming from the other.
Considering double consciousness from the perspective of intersubjectivity, Stephens
(2020) suggests that in racial engagements, “projective identifications and affective
enactments around racial identities are seen as engaging simultaneously, next to, and
alongside each other” (p. 216). Double consciousness is an essential component of the
psychodynamics of intersubjectivity (Bromberg, 2008), a form of consciousness which,
according to Stephens (2020), is formed through the “the experience of one’s relationship to
one’s internal, disavowed ‘not me’s’, and the stimulation by a real, experience-near,
interaction with a racial other” (p. 219).
During the course of the original research, I had a profound conversation with a
supervisor in which we discussed parts of my dissertation in which we had different
perspectives, shaped by our own life experiences and positioning in society as a mixed-
Pasifika/Palagi female and a Pākehā male. It was uncomfortable at times, as “not me” parts
were reciprocally exposed and I experienced and perceived moments of shame and tension
that came and went between us. The power of the exchange was that we were able to stay in
relationship: to bear witness to ourselves and the other in a way that felt curious, sad at
times, but with an unspoken acceptance of the reality of our social conditioning to different
cultural identities and positions. I had a sense that alongside this “I–Thou” engagement
(Buber, 1937), we were witnessing the interaction between our shiing racialised self-states
as they were enacted in the moment.
Within the holding of these self-states occurring between and within us simultaneously,
I believe we were able to create a cross-cultural intersubjective third which facilitated a
deeper knowing of the “not me” of ourselves and the other. As Swartz (2020) suggests, if both
parties can embrace the mutual sense of double consciousness that emerges, it becomes
possible to create a space where both can “sit (together) with sadness and a sense of mutual
containment and recognition” (p. 619). If we are able to tolerate this, we suggest that double
consciousness — for both perpetrators and recipients in the microaggression dynamic —
may provide a rich and holding space in which both parties might come to experience and
explore their unconscious racialisation as it arises in the moment(s) together.
e discipline and profession of psychotherapy
While being an enigma in the sense of being difficult to understand, and notoriously
difficult to navigate productively, the encounter and challenge of unintentional racial
microaggressions represents a moment of opportunity, not only for fostering mutual
recognition but also for exploring intersubjective racial and cultural conditioning as it
manifests and is reflected through the cultural/racial self and other in microaggressive
interactions.
The discipline of psychotherapy, with its appreciation for the dynamic and reciprocal
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Malik McCann and Keith Tudor
interplay of unconscious processes, is well-oriented to apply these foundational aspects of
the profession to a consideration of racialisation and social unconscious processes as they
arise in microaggression dynamics. However, in order to do so, we must look critically at the
way these issues are currently approached, theorised, practiced, and resisted in educational/
training environments and, following from that, in clinical practice.
We suggest that, as a profession, we must start by acknowledging the contradictions that
occur between the aspirations and the reality of cultural safety and inclusivity in the
discipline and profession of psychotherapy and to accept that, although we genuinely want
to do beer, it is an ongoing journey and that we’re not there yet. We must acknowledge and
consider the influence of society and its colonial foundations on the self, and normalise the
existence of unconscious aspects of racism and structural oppression as something to which
we are all prone. Rather than trying to avoid microaggressions, and then feeling deep shame
and defensiveness when we do, we may focus on developing curiosity, self-awareness, and
critical consciousness, as well as the tolerance to be able to meet the disavowed aspects of
ourselves that reveal themselves in these moments, and to embrace and learn from
experiences of mutual double consciousness, through the creation of a cross-cultural
intersubjective third.
As therapists, educators/trainers and supervisors, we must reckon with the illusion that
racism exists outside ourselves, and accept that education regarding historical context, and
social and cultural issues and holding egalitarian beliefs do not necessarily protect us from
enacting racism. Importantly, we must also reckon with the illusion that we do not enact
colonial dynamics or reinforce damaging narratives simply because we are not aware of
how we do so. As Layton (2019) suggests, an ethic of disillusionment is required in order to
recognise that, alongside genuine aempts at progress, normative unconscious processes
are at play which work to undermine genuine equity and cultural parity. Leing go of these
normative illusions and reframing unconscious racialisation and bias as potential and
possibly inevitable, may open up the possibility of making use of microaggressive
encounters for deeper reciprocal exploration.
Exploration of the unconscious aspects of our socialisation must begin in education/
training. The way microaggressive encounters are navigated in this context demonstrate
how they will be navigated in the therapeutic relationship, so how they are approached is
important. In order to facilitate exploration of unconscious racialisation with student/
trainee psychotherapists, it is vital that educators/trainers and supervisors continue to
explore and reflect on the unconscious aspects of socialisation to Western society as
manifested in themselves. This may require these colleagues to have facilitated relational
engagement in the kind of challenging conversations regarding race and culture that are
normally avoided precisely in order to foster double consciousness and to come to know
their own shiing racialised self-states. This engagement will also be beneficial for building
tolerance and capacity to hold, explore, and understand their own affective responses to
microaggressive interactions before they are required to facilitate this process for others.
Through these experiences educators/trainers and supervisors may be beer equipped to
guide students to navigate microaggressive encounters and other moments of cultural
tension productively as they arise in the classroom and/or supervisory relationships.
We suggest that the burden of responsibility to transform microaggressive moments
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into learning opportunities lies with the person in the position of power. In the context of a
therapeutic relationship, this power asymmetry is weighted to the therapist; in the education/
training environment, it lies with the educators/trainers and supervisors. It is also important
to note the power that comes with being centred in Western society, regardless of the position
one holds and the intrapsychic privilege that comes with holding a seat on the “superior”
side of superior/inferior binary constructs. Alongside and, perhaps, as a result of this power,
it is likely that those who hold centred positions may be less aware of how they are personally
implicated in and perpetuate damaging narratives and positioning as expressed through
unintentional microaggressions, which is why it is so important that they are and remain
open to learning. If those challenged as perpetrators are primed to the possibility of their
not knowing with regard to normative assumptions, beliefs, disavowals and defences, and
are aware of the realities of structural oppression in the wider social-political context, they
may be more open to discovering what they do not yet know.
For minorities, challenging a microaggression of which the perpetrator is unaware can
be extremely difficult and deeply exposing. The intrapsychic disadvantage that may come
from holding a seat on the “inferior” side of racial binary constructs suggests that, for some,
a bale against the internal oppressor has already taken place in order to initiate a challenge.
These moments occur in the context of compounding experiences of previous cultural and
racial invalidation and minimisation, and may come with an affective intensity that does
not belong solely to the current microaggressive moment. This highlights the need for those
in positions of power to be available as allies to recipients, to facilitate reflection and
learning by perpetrators, and to be able to contain the volatile affect for all parties involved
in microaggression interactions.
The ability to contain and tolerate the intense affect that can arise in microaggressive
encounters (in both perpetrator and recipient) is crucial in being able to make use of these
moments. Experiencing, exploring, and building tolerance for the discomfort which arises
in microaggressive moments during education/training will provide student/trainee
psychotherapists with the opportunity to explore their own unconscious racialisation, their
disavowed, and their resistance (Sue, 2013). Facilitated and considered experiences of
navigating microaggressions during education/training will provide a framework for
students/trainees to navigate these moments with clients as they arise in their own
therapeutic practice. Emphasis must be placed on the fact that it is not the microaggression
itself, but the navigation of rupture and repair in these moments which determines the
ability to maintain relationships (Caflisch, 2020; Lee et al., 2018; Sue, 2013; Taffel, 2020).
The therapeutic relationship has the potential to provide a reparative experience for
both perpetrator and recipient. Developing awareness of one’s dissociated and shiing
racial and cultural self-states as a therapist and building tolerance for the uncomfortable
affect that comes with these states can be highly beneficial in experiencing microaggressive
dynamics as they arise with clients. It can mean being able to stay in relationship, and the
ability to listen and reflect on others experience when they are different from one’s own.
Therapists may have the capacity to acknowledge and take responsibility for any harm that
is caused by their own unintentional microaggressive behaviours, and to stay curious to the
self-states and experiences of double consciousness that may arise in themselves and in the
client. These encounters, navigated in relationship, can facilitate an exploration of
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unconscious racialisation and exploration of the differing societal experiences and world
views which racial positions entail.
Awareness of normative unconscious processes and the interplay of unconscious
racialisation may facilitate the therapist’s ability to acknowledge unintentional racial
microaggressions non-defensively, if and when challenged in the clinical encounter. If the
therapist can neither deny, enact manic reparation, or collapse into a view of themselves as
bad or fragile, these moments may provide a pathway to deeper trust in the therapeutic
relationship; to clients’ deeper understanding of their racial and cultural selves; to healing
validation of their lived experience; and an understanding and exploration of both clients’
and therapists’ racialisation as an outcome of holding differing racial and cultural positions
in Western colonial or post-colonial society.
Dalal (2002) suggests a model to explore internalised aspects of racialisation which
moves from the outside (acknowledging the social realities of racism and its inevitable
impact on both therapist and client), in, by building sufficient trust for the client to explore
the internalised aspects of this phenomenon. With the creation of an intersubjective cross-
cultural third, both therapist and client are more likely to be able to explore the aspects of
unconscious racialisation as experienced through the relationship and reflected by the gaze
of the other in a way that is understood to be reciprocal. Understanding the regressive and
damaging influence of these constructs while acknowledging those aspects which are
protective and positive may help both therapist and client to grieve the realities of racism
together and to take ownership of both the me and the not me of their racial and cultural
identities.
This article has examined unintentional racial microaggressions and suggested that
they hold a potential entry point into exploration of the deeper unconscious processes of
racialisation for both perpetrator and recipient. In order to turn these moments into
opportunities, we as educators/trainers, supervisors and therapists (who, by definition, hold
positions of power) must be prepared to confront our own resistances and internal racist
organisations (Davids, 2011); to explore and reflect on the implicit racist beliefs we may
hold unconsciously as reflected back to us in microaggressive moments; and to develop the
capacity to remain in relationship in the face of the intense affect that arises in these
uncomfortable interactions. If we are able to embrace our ordinariness, these explorations
may be a valuable therapeutic endeavour, but to do so, the spotlight must be held on the
imprint of colonial ideology on the psyches of all involved.
References
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Malik McCann is a registered psychotherapist, wife and
mother of three wonderful young adults. She is of mixed
heritage Niuean, Samoan, Chinese and Irish descent, born and
raised in Aotearoa New Zealand. She is a member of Tangata
Moana Psychotherapy Collective and through her own journey
of reclamation and decolonisation has come to be deeply
interested in exploring the unconscious aspects of normative
intergenerational socialisation into the colonial environment
and how this is enacted in therapeutic relationships and
training spaces. She is currently undertaking a PhD, exploring the underlying and oen
unspoken cross-cultural tensions that exist in training environments from the stand point
of different cultural perspectives and relationships to power, through talanoa.
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56 Ata: Journal of Psychotherapy Aotearoa New Zealand
The enigma of unintentional racial microaggressions
Keith Tudor is Professor of Psychotherapy at Auckland
University of Technology, where he is also a co-lead of Moana
Nui — Research in the Psychological Therapies. He has
published on the subject of psychotherapy, culture, race, the
social world, and politics, and, alongide being the Editor and
Co-Editor ofAta (2012–2017), was the Editor ofPsychotherapy
and Politics International (2012–2022) hps://ojs.aut.ac.nz/
psychotherapy-politics-international/, another open-access
journal published by Tuwhera Open Access. He also promotes
and supports students and graduates to publish articles from their master’s and doctoral
research.
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