ABSTRACT
In the introduction to this book, the central concepts of intersectionality are presented both in outline and as questions that challenge the reader to consider how they can be applied. The unequivocal message is that intersectionality is vital to the development of a therapeutic lexicon of power, position, and privilege. Intersectionality is the perspective that individuals’ identities, contexts, and ways of relating to the world and being related to are constituted by power relationships along different axes of power. These axes of power are interconnected and interdependent. Understanding the compound psychological injury of being positioned at the crossroads or intersection of axes of power is essential to therapeutic healing. Internal worlds, emotions, and psychological apparatuses of unconscious defences are intersectional and require an intersectional response. The ideas and applications of intersectionality are explored with reference to group-analytic concepts that are introduced and developed in the authors’ contributions.
