Social Justice on the Couch: Collapse and Repair of Social Thirdness

How have the white, middle-class, Eurocentric ideologies and practices of the Western psychoanalytic canon prepared us to make meaning of the complexities of our pluralistic world? Psychoanalysis has been criticized for its predominantly decontextualized and depoliticized perspectives that emphasize universal intrapsychic unconscious dynamics. In the context of a sociopolitically critical view of psychoanalytic theory and practice, I will reflect on what it means to keep conducting ‘business as usual’ in an era where movements like Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, as well as the health inequities that became apparent due to the Covid-19 pandemic are clear warning signs that our world is deeply troubled by injustice. I will argue that psychoanalytic theory and practice is not immune from this injustice. I will also contemplate aspects of a socially just psychoanalytic vision that may reverse decontextualizing, depoliticizing, and prejudicial trends using the principle of social thirdness, which expands traditional views of thirdness to include the patient's and therapist's embeddedness in the larger sociopolitical currents that inform and shape their engagement with each other. Reflecting on themes such as race, sexuality, gender, and sex/gender nonconformity, both the collapse and repair of social thirdness will be described and illustrated with relevant clinical examples.