Saturday November 20, 2021
The Connecticut Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology Presents
Gail Lewis, Ph.D.
Black Feminisms and the Therapeutic Moment
Art: Freedom Quilt, ca. 1975 Telfair, Jessie Bell Williams, American, 1913 - 1986
Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Virginia Dwan
11am - 1 pm
2 CEUs (NASW & Div 39)
NOW — no extra charge for CEUs!
Lunch will be served to all in person attendees at 1pm
The New Haven Lawn Club
193 Whitney Ave, New Haven
And on Zoom
Check-in begins 10:30 at event and Zoom
A Zoom link will be sent to all registrants the day before the event.
Since lunch is included please indicate if you plan to attend via Zoom or in person.
The Talk
In the wake of Black Lives Matter, clinicians and their clinical institutions have turned their attention to the need to find ways to better address questions of racialised difference and the harms of racism as they arrive in the consulting room with their patients. Whilst different psychoanalytic schools draw on various theoretical frameworks as to the relationship between psychic life, subjectivity and social-cultural processes and legacies, less focused attention, notwithstanding interest in intersectionality, is given to consideration as to the potential approaches linked to black feminisms may offer clinical work.
This talk aims to foster a discussion about how black feminisms may indeed, offer a powerful supplement to our inherited approaches to matters of racialised difference and racist injury, even as these approaches are developing in the current context. The talk will outline two interrelated, but distinct, black feminist approaches: one called intersectionality, the other black feminist fugitivity, and suggest that these foreground two separate orientations to the matter of race and that, in so doing, they pose different psychotherapeutic challenges for our practice. The talk will attempt to illustrate these differences by reference to examples from clinical cases. While it will not be a case discussion as such, it is hoped that participants will share clinical vignettes to help broaden and enliven the discussion.
The Speaker
Gail Lewis, PhD Is Reader Emeritus in the Department of Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London and Presidential Visiting Professor at Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Yale University. She trained in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, and then Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy at the Tavistock Clinic.
Entering these professional worlds after activism, her political subjectivity was formed in the intensities of black feminist and anti-racist struggle and through a socialist, anti-imperialist lens. She was a member of the Brixton Black Women's Group and one of the founder members of the Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent.
Dr Lewis has written on feminism, intersectionality, the welfare state, and racialised-gendered experience. Her publications include:
‘Birthing Racial Difference: Conversations with my mother and others’ (2009) Studies in the Maternal; ‘Unsafe Travel: experiencing intersectionality and feminist displacements’ (2013)
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society; ‘Where Might I Find You’: Popular Music and the Internal Space of the Father’, (2012) Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society. '
Once More with my Sistren: Black Feminism and the Challenge of Object Use, (2020) Feminist Review. She believes that intergenerational conversations are among the most urgent in these times.
She is an Arsenal fan.
Conference Schedule
10:45 – 11 Registration
11 – 1 Presentation
Learning Objectives
1) Understand theoretical complexity of black feminisms.
2) Differentiate the imprints of racist injury from the libidinal force of black life
3) Consider the implication of this distinction for psychotherapeutic moments
References
Lewis, G. (2009) Birthing Racial Difference: conversations with my mother and others. Studies in the Maternal, 1 (1). www.mamsie.bbk.ac.uk
Lewis, G. (2012) Where might I find you? Objects and internal space for the father. Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1088-0763 Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society Vol. 17, 2, 137–152 www.palgrave-journals.com/pcs
Lewis, G. (2020) Once more with my sistern. Feminist Review Issue 126, 1–18 © 2020 The Author(s) Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/0141778920944372
Participants
The conference is appropriate for professionals interested in the practice of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy. The instructional level of this conference is intermediate.
Continuing Education
This conference has been approved for for 2 continuing education hours(NASW & Div. 39) Division 39 maintains responsibility for this program and its content. Social workers can receive continuing education credit through NASW/CT.
If CE credit is desired, please mark the appropriate box on the registration page, for our records. In addition,100% attendance and a completed evaluation form is required to receive CE credit. The evaluation form will be sent in the form of an online survey to all registrants within a few days after the event, and if you attend the full conference and return that you will be sent a PDF certificate.
To Register and Pay
Members - remember to log in to register as a member.
If you do not log in, you won't be recognized as a member.
All registrations must be made and paid for online.
Refunds will be given in full until the Monday before the conference. To receive a refund cancel your registration online by going to your profile in the upper right corner, select "My Event Registrations" click on the event, then click on "Cancel Reservation." Questions/problems, please contact the registrar, Christopher Greene, LCSW.
A Zoom link will be sent to all registrants the day before the event.
Members and Contacts - Need to update your information?
Please login to your profile, then click under your name at View Profile, to make any changes or additions, including changes of email addresses. If you have problems, contact Rebecca Jordan
CSPP Membership: Membership is open to all mental health professionals ($85 annual dues); early career (less than 7 years since degree, $50 annual dues); retirees ($30 annual dues); and graduate students ($20 annual dues). For further information on membership in CSPP please click here: CSPP
Directions to the New Haven Lawn Club at 193 Whitney Ave, New Haven. From either north or south bound directions, take Exit 3 from I-91 and go straight 2 blocks on Trumbull and turn right on Whitney Avenue. The New Haven Lawn Club is 2-1/2 blocks on right just across from the Peabody Museum.
Division 39 is committed to accessibility and non-discrimination in its continuing education activities. Participants are asked to be aware of needs for privacy and confidentiality throughout the program. If program content becomes stressful, participants are encouraged to process these feelings during discussion periods. If participants have special needs, we will attempt to accommodate them.
Please address questions, concerns and any complaints to Ellen Nasper, PhD, at Ellen Nasper.
