Dreams from three black patients and dreams from three white patients in analysis and in psychotherapy were analyzed with respect to spontaneous references to the colors black and white.

With the black patients I have worked with in interracial analysis, problems in self-object differentiation and in the development of the sense of identity, as well as intrapsychic conflicts, have come to be unconsciously organized in accord with meanings ascribed to the contrasting colors black and white. Identifications with parental conflicts structured along such color lines, when reinforced by reality experiences, tend to foster the development of ambivalent splitting of self- and object representations of the degraded and idealized varieties, in line with values attached to the colors black and white. This