Location: Virtually on Zoom

Description:

What makes it possible to speak openly about racial trauma and othering, particularly in settings meant to offer safety and care? What happens when these experiences are met with silence, defensiveness, or disbelief?

Drawing on her paper published in Psychoanalytic Inquiry, Betty Teng explores the psychological, emotional, and relational challenges of speaking about racial trauma, and the conditions that enable—or inhibit—these difficult conversations. At the heart of this exploration is Care, understood as both a therapeutic and political act. This interactive seminar invites clinicians to consider how vulnerability, power, self-regulation, and witnessing shape our capacity to create spaces where painful truths can be spoken, heard, and meaningfully engaged, both in individual treatment and in groups.

Presenter Bio:

Betty Teng, LCSW, MFA, is a psychoanalyst, writer, and teacher in New York City. She is the author of “My Analytic Romance: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly,” published in Psychoanalytic Inquiry’s special issue on “The Patient Experience,” and a contributing essayist to Adam Phillips’ The Cure for Psychoanalysis. She is also co-author of the New York Times bestselling The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, founding co-host of the podcast Mind of State, and co-editor of its companion book, Mind of State: Conversations on the Psychological Conflicts Stirring U.S. Politics and Society, a finalist for the Gradiva Award. She serves on the faculty of the Manhattan Institute of Psychoanalysis and works with adult individuals and couples in private practice in New York City.

If you have any questions or concerns, contact the Seminar Series Co-Chairs, Nardia Brooks and Jacqueline Ambrosini.