COLONIAL OBJECT RELATIONS: GOING UNDERGROUND BLACK–WHITE RELATIONSHIPS

Abstract

abstract This paper explores the relationship between black and white people in both internal and external reality. The Black and the White are both part objects and constitute a destructive type of object relation inherited from the history of slavery, colonization and empire. Colonial object relations describe a tendency in black–white relationships for the white to control or attempt to control the black object. Although often disguised and sometimes invisible, colonial object relations are commonplace, both in the psyche and in society at large. The paper argues that, whilst such object relations are an evident and deeply embedded part of our culture and psyche, they are also chronically and defensively avoided, ignored and denied at a great cost in human suffering – which blocks the development of our capacity for whole object relating. Colonial object relations are illustrated through clinical and other material and the implications for psychotherapists are discussed.