More Than Simply Human: Intersectionality in Psychoanalytic Theory, Practice, and Establishment

Abstract

In a society that is increasingly awakening to the intersectionalities of identity and self-definition, psychoanalytic work must not remain dissociated from the larger racial, ethnic, class, cultural, sexual, and gender dynamics informing and structuring our psychic realities through layering, overlapping, and decussating entanglements. These intersectionalities are always defined against—and by—power dynamics. Malin Fors’ article (in this issue) outlines some of these power themes that weave in and out of the practitioners’ and patients’ lives, inside as well as outside the office. In this article, I explore the relevance of intersectionality. I move within a psychoanalytic thought frame from the themes outlined by Fors to a different perspective on intersectionality. I propose that the denial of three fundamental intersectionalities lies at the very core of Western, White culture, and therefore, also at the core of psychoanalytic theory, practice, teaching, and establishment. These intersectionalities are: Mind/Body, Individual/Community, and Human/Nature. This denial, I suggest, is what originates, facilitates, nurtures, and reinforces the neglect of racial, ethnic, class, cultural, sexual, and gender intersectionalities in the service of maintaining established power structures.