Diversity in our Practice and our Lives
by Dawn Taylor
“R
adical openness involves a disciplined psychoanalytic stance of attempting to notice, question and relinquish presumptions about oneself and the other.” Anton Hart (1)
On December 7th, Dr. Anton Hart will present his ideas on Radical Openness and help us explore the times when patients see us differently from how we see ourselves. He posits that their perceptions are not simply transference, but are complex reactions to us as therapists and people, and to our ways of relating. He suggests that we ask ourselves whether there might be some truth to what the patient said.
Personally, I am working on my own development of cultural sensitivity, including greater consideration of my patients’ demographics, the messages my website and self presentation send, and how I can be more aware of my own implicit biases. I’ve realized how much more I can learn about my privilege, how others experience me, and my goals for development.
As part of a process of increasing my awareness, I’m looking forward to this conference. Not only will I learn by listening to Dr. Hart’s talk, but I look forward to learning to be different through the experiential elements such as a role play and group discussions.
In one of the papers Dr. Hart shared with attendees, he writes,
Too many of us remain ensconced in insular social worlds characterized by a lack of diversity with respect not to just race and ethnicity but to class, education status, religion, political orientation, sexual orientation, gender identity and others. If we are living under conditions of white supremacy, patriarchy and heterocentrism and fail to question our roles in perpetuating these systems, we are demonstrating a failure of our own capacities for curiosity about that which is other than the known and familiar.” (page 16)(2)
(1) Hart, A. From Multicultural Competence to Radical Openness: A Psychoanalytic Engagement of Otherness. Downloaded 10/29/19 from https://apsa.org/apsaa-publications/vol51no1-TOC/html/vol51no1_09.xhtml
(2) Anton Hart, A. (2019): The Discriminatory Gesture: A Psychoanalytic Consideration of Posttraumatic Reactions to Incidents of Racial Discrimination, Psychoanalytic Social Work, DOI: 10.1080/15228878.2019.1604241
ICP+P’s New Listserv for Members
Upcoming Training + Education
Short Course
Keeping the Body in Mind: Affect Regulation for Trauma Survivors
Friday, November 15, 2019, 12:00 – 3:15 pm (3 CEs) ~ ICP+P Office, 4601 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20008
Presented by Tally Tripp, LCSW, ATR-BC, CTT
Traumatic stress can evoke emotional extremes in survivors who are often described as feeling “too much” (flooding) or feeling “too little” (shut down). This workshop introduces participants to a range of neurobiologically-informed therapeutic tools and techniques that can be utilized in clinical practice with dysregulated clients. Keeping the body in mind, we will experiment with a range of body-based, “bottom up” interventions designed to promote grounding and attunement and facilitate self-awareness and affect regulation for trauma survivors.
At the conclusion of the short course, attendees will be able to:
- Describe the basic (mind-body) neurobiology of trauma.
- Identify and assess affect dysregulation in clients and self.
- Practice a range of somatic interventions focused on grounding, attunement and affect regulation.
- Apply neurobiologically-informed (brain wise) approaches in clinical practice.
This program is appropriate for clinicians at all levels of experience and offers 3 CEs.
Engaging Diversity through the Therapist’s Being Moved: Radical Openness and the Patient Who is ‘Other’
Featuring Anton H. Hart, PhD, FABP
Saturday, December 7, 2019, 9:00 am-12:30 pm ~ Silver Spring Civic Building at Veterans Plaza, Silver Spring, MD
| Patient: “I think you might have prejudice against people like me, and you don’t understand and don’t really care about people like me as much as you do understand and care about your other patients who are more like you.” | Therapist: “I do care about you and, even though we are different from each other in some respects, I believe I have understood a lot. Could it be that you might be experiencing me this way because of all you have been through?” |
In this clinical exchange, the therapist is openly disclosing aspects of her feelings and intentions in a manner that many psychotherapists might, but she is failing to be open—radically open—to the possible truths contained in what her patient is conveying to her.
Every psychotherapist has had the experience of being seen, by the people whom we are trying to help, in ways that are different from how we see ourselves. Therapeutic dialogues across the borders of diversity can intensify this dynamic. It can be extremely difficult, for example, to have the subjective experience of feeling dedicated and engaged but, in contrast, be experienced by the person we are working with as detached. Or, similarly, we may have the challenging experience of having predominantly benevolent feelings as we strive to be of help, but being experienced, nevertheless as dangerous or malevolent. Often, as psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapists, we rely on the concepts of projection and transference to emotionally protect ourselves and sustain us, as we attempt to survive and make therapeutic use of the experience of feeling misrecognized.
This workshop offers an introduction to the presenter’s concept of “radical openness” as an alternative to a stance of emphasizing transference conceptualization and interpretation. Fleshing out the concept, we will engage in case-based exercises designed to enhance our abilities to listen openly and receptively to communications that we might otherwise be inclined to experience, both intellectually and emotionally, as misplaced or foreign. In short, a stance of radical openness will be shown to seek to receive our patients’ strange experiences of us as if they are bound to contain personal truths and insights, for both them and us alike.
At the conclusion of this conference, participants will be able to:
- Discuss the anxieties associated with engaging issues of diversity, difference and otherness.
- Recognize and discuss the central roles of curiosity and radical openness as antidotes to cultural ignorance and insensitivity, and be able to cultivate such qualities in themselves and in their patients.
- Recognize and discuss pitfalls and breakdowns that can occur in diversity-related explorations and find ways to use these in the service of the restoration of open dialogue.
- Enhance their capacity for receptive engagement in the psychotherapeutic process by implementing a stance of radical openness.
This conference is appropriate for mental health professionals at all levels of experience and offers 3 Diversity CEs.
2019-2020 ICP+P Training
- November 15, 2019, Short Course: “Keeping the Body in Mind: Affect Regulation for Trauma Survivors” with Tally Tripp, LCSW, ATR-BC, CTT. ICP+P Office, 4601 Connecticut Ave., NW, Suite 8, Washington, DC 20008, 12:30 – 3:45 pm (3 CEs).
- December 7, 2019, Conference: “Engaging Diversity through the Therapist’s Being Moved: Radical Openness and the Patient Who is ‘Other'” with Anton H. Hart, PhD, Silver Spring Civic Building, 9:00am-12:30pm, 3 CEs. Fulfills Diversity credit requirement.
- February 22, 2020, Conference: “Clinical Reflections” (previously Scientific Day), Silver Spring Civic Building, 9:00am-12:30pm, 3 CEs.
- May 1, 2020, Pre-Conference: “Misogyny, Hatred and Envy” with Adrienne Harris, PhD
- May 2, 2020, Conference: “Gender Fluidity and Gender Fixed: Contemporary Intersectional and Psychoanalytic Models of Gender and Gender Development” with Adrienne Harris, PhD. Georgetown University Conference Center, 9:00 am-5:00 pm.
News + Notes
Mauricio Cortina presents paper in Mexico City and Sevilla, Spain
Mauricio Cortina gave presentations in Mexico City and Sevilla, Spain in October based on his paper “Evolutionary and Developmental foundations of Relational Psychoanalysis.”
Sheila Cahill will be displaying her art at Art Basel Miami
For any of you who are interested in contemporary art, Sheila Cahill will be displaying her art at Art Basel Miami in the Red Dot Miami show December 4 to 8. The gallery hosting her paintings is Contemporary Art Projects, USA. This gallery, located in Miami, devotes its efforts to bringing unknown artists (like Sheila) into the wider art world. Wish her luck!
Dana Harron is proud to announce publication of her new book
Dana Harron is proud to announce that her book, Loving Someone with an Eating Disorder: Supporting, Nurturing and Connecting with Your Partner, has been published with New Harbinger. It is available through Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Leave A Comment