Prologue

This conference was partly inspired by an observation that began as a lighthearted joke between friends. When discussing our graduate coursework on diversity-related issues, we noticed that the material often seemed implicitly tailored to clinicians who occupy central societal positions – those who are heterosexual, white, cisgender, middle-class, or wealthier. Classes might focus on working with specific ethnic groups or patients in poverty, but conspicuously absent were discussions about engaging with whiteness as a construct or dynamic. The assumption was often that we need to teach people how to work with those people. But what about when you, the clinician, is one of those people? To us, this omission reflected unconscious assumptions in the curriculum, what Layton (2020) refers to as the “normative unconscious.”

We joked about what it would be like to create a class for “the rest of us.” We imagined what it might include: sessions on navigating discriminatory behaviors from patients and colleagues, working with individuals who hold more privilege and social capital, including our countertransference, and navigating institutions with longstanding histories of excluding and pathologizing people like us: People of Color and/or Queer.

We began developing a list of our dream roster of psychoanalytic presenters. Despite having no budget, we reached out to them. To our surprise and joy, our proposal was generally received with enthusiasm and support. Presenters were willing to take a risk on a first-time conference with an uncertain honorarium (we agreed to a percentage of revenue, split equally between presenters and a portion donated to scholarship for BIPOC psychoanalytic candidates) organized by two people they’d never met before.