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Relating Racially: Shifting Between We, They, and I Senses of Self - Michelle Stephens, LP, PhD (Live)
2024-25 Friday Night Guest Lecture Series
Psychoanalysts and psychotherapists are currently showing considerable interest in, and concern over, the relevance of different forms of racism to psychological suffering and to the development of the field of psychoanalysis itself. This presentation aims to address gaps in current practice and clinical knowledge by reviewing recent approaches to the question of psychoanalysis and race. Stephens will foreground her own approach, using a combination of psychoanalytic theories of large group identity formation (Volkan), epidermalization (Fanon), and multiple self-states (Bromberg) to offer insights and knowledge for improving both psychoanalytic theory and practice. The presentation ends with a discussion of how a meaningful engagement with black feminist theory, the field that first theorized the intersectionality (Crenshaw) of our personal and social identities, would be useful for the development of psychoanalyst’s and psychotherapist’s ability to navigate complex issues around racial, cultural and ethnic identities in clinical settings.
Target Audience
√ Introductory √ Intermediate √ Advanced
Learning Objectives
- To demonstrate a deeper understanding of the historical roots and manifestations of large group identities, within the context of a traditional psychoanalytic focus on the singular individual psyche.
- To utilize this knowledge to identify the relationship between targets of externalization and large group identification processes, the “We—They” dynamics shaping subtle processes of bias and discrimination emergent in early subject formation.
- To apply this knowledge to adaptations of clinical technique, broadening their lines of inquiry and perception of intrapsychic and interpersonal racialized clinical dynamics.
Michelle Stephens, LP, PhD, is a graduate of the William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis & Psychology and a practicing psychoanalyst. She is also Professor of English and Latino and Caribbean studies at Rutgers University, and the founding and executive director of Rutgers’ Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice (ISGRJ). She is the author of Black Empire: The Masculine Global Imaginary of Caribbean Intellectuals in the United States, 1914 to 1962 (Duke University Press, 2005) and Skin Acts: Race, Psychoanalysis and The Black Male Performer (Duke University Press, 2014). Recently she has published articles on the intersections of race and psychoanalysis in such journals as JAPA, Contemporary Psychoanalysis, Psychoanalytic Dialogues and Psychoanalytic Quarterly, Studies in Gender and Sexuality, and Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society.
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Available Credit
- 1.50 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™
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Designation Statement - Austen Riggs Center, Inc. designates this Live activity for a maximum of 1.50 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
- 1.50 APA
The Austen Riggs Center, Inc. designates this Webinar live for 1.50 continuing education credit(s) (CE) for psychology. The Austen Riggs Center is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The Austen Riggs Center maintains responsibility for the program and its content.
Austen Riggs Center, Inc. is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists #PSY-0115.
- 1.50 ASWB-ACEThe Austen Riggs Center, #1344, is approved to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Organizations, not individual courses, are approved as ACE providers. State and provincial regulatory boards have the final authority to determine whether an individual course may be accepted for continuing education credit. Austen Riggs Center maintains responsibility for this Webinar live. ACE provider Approval Period: 02/02/2023-2/2/2026. Social workers completing this Webinar live will receive 1.50 continuing education credit(s). For a listing of jurisdictions that accept ACE, please visit States and provinces that accept ACE | Association of Social Work Boards.
- 1.50 Contact Hours/ Participation