Racial Alienation, the (Im)possibilities of Resolution, and the Absent/Present Other: Vexing Vantage Points from the Patient/Trainee: A Discussion of “Racial Difference, Rupture, and Repair: A View from the Couch and Back”

Abstract

In this article, I engage with apparent absences in our clinical work and our writings on the clinical encounter itself, when race becomes salient between patient and therapist in the room. Drawing on the work of Jacques Derrida on absence and presence, I suggest that despite representational absences in our clinical work and writings, that these nevertheless signal a spectral presence of sorts, that require a diverted gaze, as they may point to pivotal sights for further interrogation. In commenting on Long, Matee, Jwili and Vilakazi’s “Racial Difference, Rupture, and Repair: A View from the Couch and Back” (this issue), I recognize the novel vantage point of storied accounts of racialized experiences between Black patient/trainees and their White therapists, and their described moments of rupture and repair in the encounter. I identify three present/absences in these narrations that perhaps require further consideration: the present/absent White therapist in the clinical encounter, the present/absent White author in their clinical writing on these encounters, and the present/absent Black trainee therapist. In each of these instances, I suggest that they raise questions and new challenges about the possibilities and impossibilities of attenuating and resolving experiences of racial alienation that are prevalent in racialized contexts, both in the clinical encounter as well as within broader social life.