ABSTRACT
What does it mean to lay claim to understanding, let alone healing, the human mind? What ethical responsibility comes with this knowledge and practice? Is psychoanalysis, predominantly a white field in America, responsible for its influence beyond the scope of its own field, including any damage done? Are we ethically obliged to seek out dialogues with other fields to expand and challenge our understanding, or do we infer an overarching superiority by claiming to know so much about what it means to be human? As for our blind spots and/or complete erasures of certain kinds or groups of human beings, however unconscious, how do we account for this? Are we not obligated to radically reflect upon problematic underlying assumptions and deconstruct our theories and practice habits? As a practicing white psychoanalyst, I need to have an approach to healing that allows a vulnerable patient to trust enough in the work and in me so that trauma can be faced without fear of harm or colonization by the limitations, biases, or prejudices embedded in the body of ideas that guide my work. We have seen too much psychological damage done by the hubristic notions of psychoanalysis – enamored by and convinced of its universality – yet oblivious to its cultural blind spots and willing to erase or pathologize vulnerable others. This has been particularly so with people of color, the economically challenged, and others, due to the all-too-human limitations of its vision.
