Introduction to In Pursuit of Racial Equality in American Psychoanalysis: Findings and Recommendations from the Holmes Commission

After the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, along with so many other racial atrocities in the United States, the leadership of the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsA) met with the co-chairs of Black Psychoanalysts Speak, Craig Polite and Kathleen Pogue White, to address the problem of structural racism in psychoanalysis. As a result of these conversations, APsA formed the Holmes Commission (HC), chaired by Dorothy E. Holmes, Anton Hart, Dionne R. Powell, and Beverly J. Stoute. Their charge, APsA president William Glover (2020) wrote, was to investigate “systemic racism and its underlying determinants embedded within APsA, and to offer remedies for all aspects of identified racism.” Although the scope of their inquiry originally included APsA's national governance structures, policies, and practices, as well as those of all member institutes, the HC later expanded its focus beyond APsA to organized psychoanalysis in North America more broadly. It offers the first large-scale evaluative study of systemic racism in psychoanalysis, and we have chosen to publish it in its entirety, with open access, because we believe it merits serious consideration and discussion across the field.

It should be noted that the current publication reflects a revision of the original Holmes Commission Final Report issued on Juneteenth 2023. These revisions reflect the rigorous review process at JAPA. The anonymous reviewers were diverse in their personal identities, levels of training and leadership in the field, and areas of expertise. Indeed, we sought five reviewers—rather than the usual three—to capture as diverse a sample of our readership as possible in the context of a timely review process. They included white and BIPOC–identified analysts, men and women, candidates, and training analysts. The reviewers sought to clarify the document in ways that would serve the aims of communication and further engagement with the

important issues raised in the study. The authors res