Psychoanalysis in the Barrios: Race, Class, and the Unconscious

Psychoanalysis in the Barrios: Race, Class, and the Unconscious demonstrates that psychoanalytic principles can be applied successfully in disenfranchised Latino populations, refuting the misguided idea that psychoanalysis is an expensive luxury only for the wealthy.

As opposed to most Latin American countries, where psychoanalysis is seen as a practice tied to the promotion of social justice, in the United States psychoanalysis has been viewed as reserved for the well-to-do, assuming that poor people lack the "sophistication" that psychoanalysis requires, thus heeding invisible but no less rigid class boundaries. Challenging such discrimination, the authors testify to the efficacy of psychoanalysis in the barrios, upending the unfounded widespread belief that poor people are so consumed with the pressures of everyday survival that they only benefit from symptom-focused interventions. Sharing vivid vignettes of psychoanalytic treatments, this collection sheds light on the psychological complexities of life in the barrio that is often marked by poverty, migration, marginalization, and barriers of language, class, and race.

This interdisciplinary collection features essays by distinguished international scholars and clinicians. It represents a unique crossover that will appeal to readers in clinical practice, social work, counselling, anthropology, psychology, cultural and Latino studies, queer studies, urban studies, and sociology.

Patricia Gherovici, Ph.D. is a psychoanalyst and analytic supervisor in private practice in Philadelphia, USA. The author or editor of six books, she received the Gradiva Award and the Boyer Prize for her book The Puerto Rican Syndrome. She is co-founder and director of the Philadelphia Lacan Group and Associate Faculty, Psychoanalytic Studies Minor, University of Pennsylvania, Honorary Member at the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research (IPTAR), and Founding Member of Das Unbehagen, New York.

Christopher Christian, Ph.D. is Editor-in-Chief of Psychoanalytic Psychology; Dean of the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research (IPTAR); co-editor with Morris Eagle and David Wolitzky of Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Conflict; and with Michael J. Diamond of The Second Century of Psychoanalysis: Evolving Perspectives on Therapeutic Action. He is the Executive Producer of the documentary Psychoanalysis in El Barrio, winner of the Psychoanalytic Electronic Publishing (PEP) Video Grant award. He has a psychoanalytic private practice in Manhattan, New York City, USA.