White privilege: Psychoanalytic perspectives. Neil Altman. New York:  Routledge, 2021.  94 pp.

White Privilege: Psychoanalytic Perspectives (Altman, 2021) is a volume in the Psychoanalysis in a New Key book series. “When music is played in a new key, the melody does not change, but the notes in the composition do” (p. iv), writes the series editor, Donnel Stern. Like a well-trained musician, Altman modulates white privilege into a psychoanalytic key.

This short book is steeped in object relations and relational theory. The preface and introduction are a must read to appreciate the frame and structure of Altman's assertion. In the preface, Altman writes, “The full integration of good and bad in the depressive position requires a refusal to leave behind splitting altogether.” (p. x). The subsections of the introduction begin to outline terms necessary to join the conversation on white privilege, including Lynne Layton's “normative unconscious” (p. 5), which is defined as the way we learn how the world works early in life. Since this becomes part of our character so early, it is preverbal, therefore requiring a lot of curiosity and patience to understand. The chapters are titled with the very terms they define: whiteness, privilege, guilt, power, liberalism, and conservatism. The last part of the book addresses how these concepts can play out in the consulting room: “What psychoanalysis has to do with it” and how to move “Toward a more perfect union.” In my experience, my own evolving awareness of white privilege follows a parallel process to the layout of the book as we move from introduction, to defining very nuanced terms, to then beginning to see why and how we can begin to address them in the consulting room.

Altman speaks to the need for psychoanalytic professionals to begin to think about key terms that need to be understood if we hope to promote psychoanalysis as a body of knowledge. Altman made a smart choice to spend more time outside the consulting room, as that seems to be his ongoing challenge and imperative for the viability of contemporary psychoana