Structural Racism Considered: The Women’s Therapy Centre

Abstract

Psychoanalytic training institutes are not exempt from being part of structural racism, that is, the ways society at large has been developed to uphold and maintain White supremacy using social, cultural, and political institutions. Ibrahim X. Kendi’s tome, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, outlines how racist ideas have proliferated throughout the history of the United States to ensure structural inequality. Psychoanalytic training institutes are not exempt from being part of this structural racism. Such racism can be seen in a number of ways, including who originated and runs the institute, the location, tuition, supervision, and other ways in which exclusivity is systemic. I will examine these areas as they are reflected at The Women’s Therapy Centre Institute in New York City.