Whose Burden is it Anyway?

What lives in a space where two traumatized bodies make up the consulting room? How do we support womxn1 whose rights are constantly in danger, while our own are as well? What of the womxn, treating those womxn?

As a cisgendered Black woman, and a psychotherapist for Black folks of a variety of gender identities, my personal and clinical experiences have opened my eyes to the dangers that are ever present for the psyches of womxn today. My consulting room is often a melting pot of our shared cultures, traumas, and fears, unconsciously dancing together and singing in transference and countertransference. Does psychoanalytic theory adequately explore the impact of the constant threat of gender-based violence on both patients and clinicians? Is it sufficiently acknowledged as a ghost that looms in the background of our consulting rooms?

As global instances of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) increase, it is inevitable that this trauma would make its way into my work, just as it is inevitable that I am personally impacted by it daily. In response, my attention to and exploration of transference and countertransference, as well as my observation of my own internalization of both, have been heightened. Thus, I have become more curious about how our fears interact as womxn, as well as how our told and untold stories materialize in the space. My eyes and heart have taken note of the air of heaviness that lives in our interactions as we explore dread, grief, and the fear of annihilation; I wonder how healing can derive from this twinship (Kohut, 1984)

Whether I am fighting alongside Trans patients to advocate for their right to gender-affirming surgeries, or exploring the dangers my patients face when refusing to give a man their phone number, GBV has made me a participant in the constant fight for my patient’s human rights. Alongside this role, self-preservation requires me to tend to my own fears, safety, and desires as a woman – quite a load to bear.

With so much political discour