ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book describes the psychoanalytic process of moving beyond dissociated, binary modes of perceiving one’s self and the other. It argues that the ubiquitous rape of African-American slave women by their masters was intersectional at its core: greed, racism, and sexism shaped the very origins of the US economy, constructing a class system that continues to be marked by both racism and sexism. The book also describes the intersections between the intrapsychic and interpersonal experiences of immigrants and the children of immigrants. It examines the ways in which the analyst and patient negotiate mutual experiences of alienation in a shared culture of origin as they encounter experiences of foreignness in a foreign land. The book shows how the concept of intersectionality brings forward a consciousness of perpetration and difference.
