ABSTRACT
This paper is an exploration of how power and theory may work together to increase shame and self-doubt in students of psychoanalysis facing boundary-pushing behavior by superiors in the field. Shames-Dawson uses an example from her own experience of having sought mentorship and professional advice, to be met by destabilizing imposition and sexual insinuation, and she shares how she grappled to understand her contribution to the interaction and the verbal assault that followed when she addressed the behavior. Shifting to a theoretical position, Shames-Dawson suggests there are certain “articles of faith” in psychoanalytic theory that may be vulnerable to distortion to unjust ends, especially within the unequal power relations, yielding ethical, emotional, and epistemological confusion in students of psychoanalysis that may impede reporting and processing of abuses of power within the field.
