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During analysis a nineteen-year-old woman suddenly developed an "attack" of racial prejudice. This racial symptom—for that is what it amounted to—persisted for two weeks; then, its origin and meaning having been discovered, the symptom disappeared.
This paper consists of an account of the attack, an explanation of its meaning, and an application of that meaning to a consideration of the etiology of prejudice.
Before I present the clinical material, a few introductory remarks concerning the general meaning of prejudice are in order. Literally the word "prejudice" means prejudgment. It is a hastily and carelessly formed opinion about a person, group, idea, or thing; a preconceived idea not dependent for its formation on facts or familiarity. But there is more to it than that. Not only is prejudice a careless judgment, it is a judgment based upon emotions and fantasies, and thus, as well as being inaccurate, is specifically false. Furthermore, prejudice, unless otherwise defined, is always unfavorable, always against, always negative. This much meaning can be learned from dictionaries.
The psychoanalytic meaning of prejudice, while more profound, is not definitive. Relatively few studies have been made of the psychoanalysis of prejudice, and those that have been made nearly all center on one form—racial prejudice—and in turn most racial studies are concerned with anti-Semitism. Furthermore, rather than being confined strictly to the mental phenomena implied