Misuse of psychoanalysis empowers the alt right- extinction

(Daniel, Political thought AND Psychology, Psych@Duquesne, Critical Theory and Psychoanalysis: From the Frankfurt School to Contemporary Critique ed. Mills and Burston)

Needless to say, psychoanalysts must never turn a blind eye to the mind-boggling injustices that afflict communities of color in the USA, especially in the case of patients or trainees who are placed in their care or under their supervision. Nor can they support the dominant narratives that perpetuate these injustices. But neither can they abdicate their responsibility to critique statements or positions that are a-historical, lack substance, or are riddled with contradictions and glaring omissions. If they do so, they are liable to indulge in sweeping and untenable generalizations that may mask a deeper despair about achieving genuine equality and understanding among whites and communities of color. Sadly, the fact that Dr. Khilanani’s talk at Yale University and Dr. Moss’s article occurred merely a month apart indicates that critical race theory and whiteness studies have penetrated the halls of academia and made inroads into the psychoanalytic and psychiatric worlds as well. Unfortunately, given our diminishing attention spans, our growing appetite for sound bites and slogans, and our collective anguish over the long-standing injustices faced by non-white citizens in the USA, the pernicious nonsense Dr. Khilanani spouted will probably have a strong appeal to many readers on both sides of the Atlantic. Indeed, to many of them, it probably seems far more ​“​authentic​”​ or ​“​real​”​ than genuine scholarship. Furthermore, it is ironic, indeed astonishing, that some psychoanalysts (like Donald Moss) espouse a kind of racial essentialism embodied in reductive binary categories to explain extremely complex social realities. The stark, Manichean simplicity of binaries like these afford people a false sense of moral clarity, multiple opportunities for virtue signaling, and a sense of pride for being on what they imagine is ​“​the right side of history.​”​ But clinical experience demonstrates that simple binaries often belie much that lies beneath the surface, and psychoanalysis was designed to wrestle with ambiguity, contradictions, and complexity in the individual psyche and society at large. These reflections, in turn, prompt other awkward questions, questions that are currently unanswerable but warrant careful and painstaking reflection going forward. Will ideas like these continue to make inroads (or gain converts) in the psychoanalytic world? The answer, I believe, is yes. But if so, as time elapses, will psychoanalysts discard their former discipline and school-specific criteria for credentialing practitioners as competent to treat or train people of color, and will they attempt to articulate brand-new criteria along these lines? And if so, who will decide what these new criteria are and how to measure compliance with them? And how will compliance with these guidelines be enforced? I do not know the answers to these questions. Nor does anyone else at present, I suspect. We must wait and see. Meanwhile, looking to the future, Dr. Alexandra Woods strongly recommends that psychoanalytic organizations and institutes provide additional (and carefully focused) scholarships and mentoring for promising candidates from communities of color from the beginning of their undergraduate careers onward. She also recommends that courses focusing on culture, race, and class always be included in the institute’s core curriculum and that all the courses offered at psychoanalytic include a ​“​socio-psychoanalytic lens.​”​ From a pedagogical standpoint, these are excellent ideas that merit swift adoption and, in fact, are long overdue. But she also recommends that analytic institutes drop the requirement of holding a PhD and make analytic training available to social workers with an MA degree. The potential benefits to this approach are fairly obvious. Doing so would boost enrollments considerably, help rectify past injustices and the current (mostly financial) impediments to psychoanalytic training for people of color. It may also make psychoanalytic theory and practice more relevant to the other mental health professions in the process. But what of the potential drawbacks, the unintended consequences of lowering standards for scholarship among aspiring analysts? This idea requires further reflection and study. So Dr. Woods’s recommendations for transforming psychoanalytic institutes merit serious discussion. But even so, the question remains: are phenotypically white-skinned people uniquely or overwhelmingly prone to psychopathy, sadism, and a desire to enslave others? The answer to this question is an emphatic no because the vast preponderance of historical evidence suggests otherwise and because – to the best of my knowledge – no one has yet offered a remotely plausible scientific scientific explanation why this might be the case. (Nor will they, in all likelihood.) Another question: are Dr. Khilanani’s and Dr. Moss’s utterances and ideas on this score actually representative of critical race theory and whiteness studies, or do they represent a departure from them? I don’t know, but I suspect that the answer is still moot. Personally, I would very much like to believe that Khilanani’s and Moss’s racializing attitudes toward white-skinned people are not shared by the mainstream in activist communities. But even if they are merely fringe or minority views, talks and texts like these still pose a potential danger to our collective well-being. Why? Because highly credentialed academics and clinicians now speak and theorize openly in this manner in Ivy League settings, and in the process – without intending to, perhaps – furnish right-wing media with ​“​weapons of mass distraction​”​ to divert attention from far more pressing problems like income inequality and climate change, problems that bedevil – and may soon destroy – our body politic and our entire planet.