ABSTRACT
Psychoanalysis is a robust collection of concepts whose utility beyond the consulting room has yet to be fully understood or exploited. In the present contribution I describe three interrelated, psychoanalytically informed interventions. The interventions were part of a project in a Texas community where conflict-laden residues of the Jim Crow era continued to affect race relations. The first intervention (the creation of a space within which Jim Crow-and Civil Rights era narratives could be spoken and explored) and the second intervention (the creation of a documentary film) were closely linked because they were part of a process in which interviews gave testimony about a decisive, transformational experience. The third intervention created a public event where that which had been denied and excommunicated from the dominant narrative of the community’s educational history could be “spoken.”
