Psychoanalysis and black lives

This paper suggests that being black in a white majority world attracts powerful racist projections whose cumulative effect can be deeply traumatising, a problem that has not received due attention in mainstream psychoanalysis. This theme is developed through a description of how this difficulty, and the patient's inner response to it, came to light at the beginning of an analysis. The patient, who grew up as the only brown-skinned child in his white family and community, and without a father, suffered from a lifelong preoccupation with men's genitals. On the couch he experienced extreme bodily discomfort that he sought to relieve through violent sexual thrusting; the paper describes how the stance of negative capability was employed to investigate the dynamics underpinning this. This brought to light the patient's experience of racist projection and intolerance on the part of his objects, as well as his identification with them. The importance of recognising and naming these experiences, gradually and as evidence permits, are seen as central in engaging him. The paper ends by discussing how the analyst's blackness may have facilitated this development, and underlines the urgency of addressing the neglect of these matters in the mainstream of our largely white profession.