Too often, psychoanalysis misses the opportunity to attend to the task of penetrating the surface of otherness. This presentation will examine both the resistances to, and the necessity for, psychoanalytic engagement—and prioritization—of issues of otherness, difference and diversity. Anxieties associated with authentic, curious, exploratory dialogue about difference and diversity are identified. The presenter argues for a stance of curiosity in relation to difference and also for an emphasis on the noticing and learning from those moments where diversity-related communication seems to break down. Attention to such breakdowns is portrayed as crucial to facilitating forms of dialogue that can lead to more diverse—and diversely applied—psychoanalysis.
Anton H. Hart, PhD, FABP, is a Training and Supervising Analyst and on the Faculty of the William Alanson White Institute in New York City. A member of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) and the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA), he is the recently appointed Chair of APsaA’s Department of Education’s Diversities Section. A Fellow of the American Board of Psychoanalysis, he supervises at Teachers College, Columbia University and at the Derner Institute of Adelphi University. He is a member of the Editorial Boards of the journals Psychoanalytic Psychology and Contemporary Psychoanalysis. He teaches in the Department of Psychology at Mt. Sinai/St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital, at the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy, and at the National Institute for the Psychotherapies. He has published papers on issues of mutuality, disruption and safety and has work in press on issues of diversity and racism. He served as Associate Co-producer for the film, “Black Psychoanalysts Speak,” in which he was also featured. He is a Co-Founder of the White Institute’s Study Group on Race and Psychoanalysis. He is writing a book, to be published by Routledge, entitled, Beyond Oaths or Codes: Toward Relational Psychoanalytic Ethics. He is in full-time private practice in New York City.
