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This is a timely and welcome contribution to the field of psychoanalytic psychotherapy in general and to the sensitive area of cross-cultural work in particular. From its first line, ‘Slavery was a catastrophe for Africans and for Africa’ (p. 7), I was precipitated into an absorbing and compelling journey. Fletchman Smith's aim is two-pronged. One is to show how the trauma of slavery has left its mark on subsequent generations of Afro-Caribbean people in a variety of ways that need to be understood within the larger historical, social and cultural context. For this reason alone, the book was worth reading because it offers much that is relevant in thinking about our current social and political interrelations within the United Kingdom. Her interest, however, is in the way that individuals will find their own particular interpretations of, struggles within and solutions to the trauma - which leads to the other focus of the book: her assertion of the value of psychoanalytic ideas as a way of understanding people from this particular group who have psychological problems. She emphasizes the importance of a flexible attitude to theory and practice in order to avoid a further tyranny of fundamentalism.
This dual focus determines the shape of the book. In Part One, her first chapter gives a brief outline of the history of slavery and its legacy. It is not a simplified account of ‘goodies and baddies’. It does describe European and Arab exploitation but also points to practices by Africans themselves which contributed - for example, their own custom of taking slaves from other African states and their complicity in the selling of slaves. Nor does she pull punches. She is clear that ‘Britain was the chief European country involved in the organization of the slave trade’ (p. 18). Colonial and industrial expansion was founded on slavery. In this way, I think it is also a courageous book, confronting some difficult facts.
The impact and outcomes of slavery were obviously profoun