‘Things are changing for me … the anger is still there but not the hatred’. Some reflections from work with a racist

Abstract

This paper explores how a psychoanalytic perspective can be useful in understanding a particular defensive organization based around racism. A series of clinical vignettes are presented of material from an adolescent patient in psychotherapy. These vignettes concern the functional significance of a blatant racist discourse presented in therapy as a defence against a traumatized and denigrated identity. The clinical concepts of splitting and projective identification enabled a clearer understanding of the patient's presentation and progression of treatment rather than reaching an impasse.