A Preferential Option for the Repressed: Psychoanalysis Through the Eyes of Liberation Theology

Abstract

Psychoanalysis’s origin as a product of a marginalized people—Jewish women and men in 19th-century Europe—is often obscured in contemporary narratives of psychoanalytic history. This history has important relevance for subaltern communities—especially people of color in North America. Using Liberation Psychology, Latin American Liberation Theology, Black Theology, and Liberation Philosophy as a composite lens with which to reread the origins of psychoanalysis, it will be argued that imbued within its theoretical machinery is an ethics of otherness, concerned with the “outcasts” of psyche and society. Examining the intersection of race and marginality in psychoanalysis’s origins yields rich possibilities for theorizing about psychodynamics, race, and social justice.