Owning the Responsibility of Shame and Erasure. A Response to Shabad’s Article “Owing and Being Owed: Shame and the Responsibility Toward Other”

Abstract

ABSTRACT In response to Shabad’s paper, Owing and Being Owed, I query how the analyst and patient are positioned with regard to their social milieu and historical rank in the scene of a greeting that goes unmet. The shared experience of shame in such a scene too often eludes us precisely because of the invocation of shame. In turning away from what is shared or disparate in the shame that is summoned when a mixed-race dyad encounters the as-if neutrality of the frame, that is, the whiteness of the profession, the frame is secured as if obvious. And, the patient’s demand for recognition is rendered as-if developmental rather than structural to society at large.