Jungian Reflections on Systemic Racism: Members of an American Psychoanalytic Community on Training, Practice and Inclusivity

Jungian Reflections on Systemic Racism is a unique contribution of Jungian analysts and analysts-in-training who provide individual perspectives and approaches to promoting greater inclusivity in analytical theory, training and practice.

This book examines issues of racism through intrapsychic, interpersonal, and archetypal lenses. Drawing from the specificity and ingenuity of Jungian psychoanalysis, the authors provide personal narratives, clinical vignettes, and theoretical perspectives that exemplify ways of comprehending and furthering the work of anti-racism. The editors assert that without deeper exploration of our theories, distinguishing between the theory itself and the theorist’s unconscious biases, our clinical paradigms unconsciously align and thus perhaps promote an attitude of white supremacy in psychoanalytic training programs and practices. Without claiming to reflect the official view of any particular psychoanalytic community, it utilizes Jung’s analytic paradigm to offer insight into the dynamics of the cultural complex of racism from a depth psychological perspective.

Jungian Reflections on Systemic Racism is an important resource for psychoanalytic students, trainees, supervisors, and practitioners, as well as for clinicians, medical professionals, social workers, mental health professionals, sociologists, and anyone interested in the wide impact of the unscientific construct of 'race’.

Christopher Jerome Carter, MDiv, ThM, PhD, LP, NCPsyA is certified in Jungian analysis and is a licensed psychoanalyst practicing in New York. He is member of the International Association for Analytical Psychology (IAAP), the National Association for the Advancement of Analytic Psychology (NAAP), and the Jungian Psychoanalytic Association. ‘Time for Space at the Table: An African American-Native American analyst-intraining’s first-hand reflections. A call for the IAAP to publicly denounce (but not erase) the White supremacist writings of C.G. Jung’ was honored with the 2021 Gradiva Award (NAAP).

Tiffany Houck, MDiv, PhD, LP is a licensed psychoanalyst and a certified Jungian analyst in private practice in New York City. She is the author of History Through Trauma: History and Counter-History in the Hebrew Bible (2018, Wipf and Stock Publishers); as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters published at the intersection of studies in gender and sexuality, psychoanalysis, religion, and trauma. She serves as a faculty member and the current Director of Training of the Jungian Psychoanalytic Association.