Intersectionality and Relational Psychoanalysis: New Perspectives on Race, Gender, and Sexuality, edited by Cleonie White and Max Belkin.  Routledge, 2020,  246 pp.

Imagine a world in which psychoanalysis departed from its standard norms and broadened its perspective, where patients are treated with deeper understanding of their sexuality, gender, race in an entirely non-hegemonic manner. Imagine a struggle for psychological existence in the psychoanalytic community where gender polymorphism, diversity of sexuality, and recognition of women are fully acknowledged and dignified.

In the contemporary psychoanalytic literature, this is still under recognized, and Max Belkin's and Cleonie White's Intersectionality and Relational Psychoanalysis is a timely contribution. In this extraordinary collection of essays written in an intimate style and hybrid form, the authors—all eminent psychoanalysts—bring to the reading audience their own palpable experiences. These extremely personal encounters express complex issues of intersectionality and relational psychoanalysis to the reader and practicing clinician with presence and ease. We feel moved and genuinely touched while reading these beautiful pieces depicting different sensibilities in their overarching quest for the psychological truth.

The pallet of analytic experiences, mutual discoveries, surprises of otherness described in this book leads us to a new and enriched space

without boundaries while frequently offering us new ways in navigating therapeutic impasses.

In recent years, social justice concerning sexual and gender diversity have become increasingly visible. The hardening of sociopolitical ideologies has been taking its brutal toll. So the voices of psychoanalysts are more than ever indispensable. In a masterful way, Max Belkin explores the intersectionality and relational psychoanalysis firsthand, while working with a female patient of color. Interplay of shame and guilt in a privileged and underprivileged world is addressed with playfulness and organized curiosity. Here human existence is not misshapen but rather acknowledged and contained in a new transitional space in whi