Intersectionality and Relational Psychoanalysis: New Perspectives on Race, Gender, and Sexuality ed. by Max Belkin and Cleonie White

Abstract

Reviewed by: Intersectionality and Relational Psychoanalysis: New Perspectives on Race, Gender, and Sexuality ed. by Max Belkin and Cleonie White Deborah Shilkoff, LICSW (bio) Intersectionality and Relational Psychoanalysis: New Perspectives on Race, Gender, and Sexuality, Edited by Max Belkin and Cleonie White Psychoanalytic metapsychology has changed in the past decades from an emphasis on drives as the source of intrapsychic organization, energy, and movement. The nexus of psychoanalytic theory has evolved from the intrapsychic to an interpersonal, intersubjective, and relational focus. With the evolution of intersubjective psychoanalysis, the bi-personal field of the analytic pair is now seen as the vehicle of intrapsychic growth. The relational field further evolved as the locus for development of the ego. An appreciation of the social milieu and its effect on the individual led to an understanding of the long arm of trauma on development. Relational psychoanalysis holds that one sequela of trauma is dissociation, the inability to hold overwhelming pain that threatens the ego with fragmentation. The individual's internal states are cut off from one another, disabling the ego from cohering. Self-states are not perceived as belonging to the individual but are felt to be "not me" states. Internal conflict cannot be accessed because it did not fully develop or because it was sidelined by overwhelming trauma. Affect regulation and thought are not available to stem the flow of traumatic fight/flight/freeze enactment. Philip Bromberg's "Credo" (2012) tells us that "the therapeutic action of psychoanalysis is a self–Other negotiation that takes place between and within analyst and patient at the interface of dissociation and the capacity to hold internal conflict" (p. 273). Bromberg counseled achieving a balance of "safety and risk" within the therapeutic alliance as the most effective analytic tool. Enactments are processed jointly with the goal of developing the capacity for thought and affect tolerance. [End Page 207] Complexity becomes available, and the world is no longer seen as monolithic and annihilating. Kimberlé Crenshaw (2016, 1991) is the originator of the term "intersectionality," which is a way to name and frame the complexity at the intersection of racism, sexism, classism, colonialism, ableism, xenophobia, and heterosexism. Without such a "frame," Crenshaw tells us, we lack an awareness, context, and empathy for the various states experienced by those in these overlapping categories. Not being able to see more than one part of the overlapping frame at a time results in deficits in or assaults on social justice. Crenshaw gives the example of Emma DeGraffenreid, an African American woman who was denied a job at General Motors. She sued GM for race and gender discrimination. The judge denied her claim, saying that GM did hire Blacks and women, so there was no discrimination, and he could not grant her preferential treatment. Crenshaw saw that the judge missed a key point. The Blacks hired by GM were all men who worked on the assembly line. The women, all white, were secretaries. GM had not hired Black women, a blind spot for both GM and the judge. Crenshaw saw this as an intersection in which Ms. DeGraffenreid was unacknowledged. The overlap with intersectionality and relational psychoanalysis is represented in the ability to see people and institutions as complex, with overlapping meanings. The contributors in this well-written book help us see how our unconscious sense of privilege limits our ability to see the intersecting vertices of our patients' realities. We then become part of the social structure from which patients may feel excluded. The revolutionary changes in both relational psychoanalysis and intersectionality, as outlined in this book, constitute both the ability to see complex structures as internal and external, and the function of bearing witness to trauma at many levels simultaneously. Each chapter represents a different focus, so each will be addressed separately. In "Queer Identities," Max Belkin says each category is a metaphor, not a binary stereotype that inhabits a transitional space. Our narrative is both "social" and "idiosyncratic." With his patient, Ana, both were in a "dissociative cocoon" of mutual hiding of their true selves from the other in a "fascinating but [End Page 208] disturbing hall of mirrors," competing with one another for the moral high ground of...