The Trauma of Racism: Lessons from the Therapeutic Encounter

The Trauma of Racism: Lessons from the Therapeutic Encounter is a pioneering reflection on the psychology of racism and its impact on us all. With the intimacy of personal experience and depth of analytic exposition, the authors expose racism’s searing effects on personal, clinical, and community interactions while providing pathways for change.

This book asserts that the insights and practice of psychoanalysis, applied behind the couch and in the community, create unique opportunities for change. Essayists address racially derived mental health inequities, including distortions, projections, stereotypes, and historical tropes. The Trauma of Racism invites personal and clinical exploration of how people learn, confront, and re-learn views on race. Narratives of the loss and grief and the burdens of slavery that crisscross the African American community are present. They are complemented by those of the psychological burdens and inspired acts of personal responsibility that respond to unequal access to wealth and opportunity along racial lines. In moving accounts portraying experiences of racism and access to privilege, the authors grapple with the possibilities of mutual understanding.

Readers concerned about racism will find themselves challenged and engaged. This book is intended for the general reader and for clinicians at any career stage. Likewise, scholars in the humanities, law, education, or public policy will find new opportunities to reflect and to act.

Beverly J. Stoute, M.D., is a child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, a training and supervising analyst at the Emory University Psychoanalytic Institute, and a child and adolescent supervising analyst at the New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute. She teaches on the faculty of multiple training programs and is an internationally recognized author, speaker, educator, clinician and organizational consultant ​in private practice in Atlanta, Georgia.

Michael Slevin, MSW, a member of the Washington Baltimore Center for Psychoanalysis, is in private practice in Baltimore, Maryland. He is a writer and editor on psychoanalytic issues. He has been active in bringing psychoanalytic ideas and practice into contexts outside the consulting room, to less privileged communities, and into political decision making.