This seminar focuses on the therapist’s and patient’s dilemmas concerning sociocultural issues in the therapeutic relationship. Dr. Tummala-Narra will expand on her framework for culturally informed psychoanalytic therapy (Tummala-Narra, 2016), particularly in the context of the contemporary sociopolitical climate. This elaboration of the framework will include the interaction of personality and social context, complex subjectivity and relational stress implicated in race and culture, and the challenge of humanizing sociocultural difference. The seminar aims to deepen understandings of the splitting of good vs. bad and us vs. them in our broader social world, and related social isolation, fear, and mistrust. The format includes lecture, case material, and discussion.
Usha Tummala-Narra, Ph.D. is a Professor of Counseling, Developmental, and Educational Psychology at Boston College. Her research and scholarship focus on the psychology of immigration and trauma, and culturally informed psychoanalytic psychotherapy. She is also a clinical psychologist in Independent Practice. Dr. Tummala-Narra is a Consulting Editor for Psychoanalytic Dialogues and for the American Psychologist. She has served as a member of the American Psychoanalytic Association Holmes Commission on Racial Equality, and in several leadership roles in the American Psychological Association (APA), including the APA Presidential Task Force on Immigration, the APA Task Force on Re-envisioning the Multicultural Guidelines, and the APA Presidential Task Force on Trauma and Grief. She is the author of Psychoanalytic Theory and Cultural Competence in Psychotherapy (2016), the editor of Trauma and Racial Minority Immigrants: Turmoil, Uncertainty, and Resistance (2021), and co-author of Applying Multiculturalism: An Ecological Approach to the Multicultural Guidelines (2023), all published by the American Psychological Association. Dr. Tummala-Narra is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including being listed among the top 2% of Highly-Cited Scholars Worldwide (Stanford University Report).
Registration includes live access to this workshop or a recording of the event.
