Unity in Diversity: CORED Moves Into the Millennium

The Committee on Racial and Ethnic Diversity has now become a standing committee. The CORED mandate is to facilitate recruiting, integration, and promotion of minority candidates within our organization. Further, it will enrich the state of psychoanalysis in America by bringing a more diverse group (more representative of the general population) into the science and profession of psychoanalysis.

CORED was established as an ad hoc committee in December 1994 under the able guidance of Marvin Margolis and Dorothy Holmes and has been chaired by Pamela Jennings for the past three years. Jennings undertook an enormous challenge in attempting to identify, define, and consolidate the goals of this. Her hard work, forthrightness, and courage has seen the committee through its growing pains. Much work has been done, and much lies ahead.

During the last three years, the chairs of the various subcommittees have initiated and maintained several projects. Salman Akhtar, a member of the Program Committee, continues to tap minority talent actively to participate in the progress of The American. Working with Enrico Jones, Akhtar has developed a bibliography pertaining to psychoanalytic perspectives on cultural, racial, and ethnic diversity. This bibliography will be available on a Web site in the near future, thanks to the efforts of Joanne Seltzer and Kim Leary. Kelly Reid, chair of the Subcommittee on Community Outreach, with Bruce Sklarew arranged film discussions during the Fall Meeting in December 1997. Five films that offered representations of race and prejudice were shown — Chamber, Driving Miss Daisy, Gentlemen's Agreement, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?, and A Time to Kill. The films were discussed by Harold Blum, Edward Kirby, Carlotta Miles, and Reid.

Joanne Seltzer, chair of the Recruitment and Training Subcommittee, did outstanding work in surveying the attitudes and expectations of societies and institutes regarding current efforts to attract candidates of color and address issues of diversity in supervision and curriculum. Thirty-three surveys were sent to societies and institutes; nineteen candidates responded identifying themselves as being part of a racial or ethnic minority. The majority of institutes preferred not to keep records of the racial and ethnic composition of members and candidates, although several identified minority members. Of the nineteen candidates, only one had dropped out of training, and that for personal reasons.

Many institutes indicated that diversity stimulates learning and discussion and creates an expanded treatment population. Several institutes have developed programs to address issues of diversity, including visits by minority analysts, film series, and curriculum readings. Homosexuality was explicitly included as an issue of diversity by several respondents. Most respondents said that candidates are involved in supervisions where issues of racial and ethnic diversity are relevant, and about half the respondents have started outreach programs to populations not traditionally served by psychoanalysis. The American has established a visiting professorship in racial and ethnic diversity, and CORED will help identify potential visiting professors. Akhtar and Holmes will pioneer this within the next year. The discussion group on racial and ethnic diversity within The American will continue under the guidance of Jennings, Carlotta Miles, and Sandra Walker.

With such work already in progress, CORED chair Purnima Mehta and co-chair Michele Morgan feel fortunate and challenged to lead the committee into the next century. Despite the successes enjoyed by CORED thus far, the task remains daunting. One of the major obstacles to a more inclusive environment in The American is the assumption by many that minority issues are of relevance to minority analysts and patients only. In reality, just as the contributions of women and the more recent contributions of gay and lesbian analytic theorists have broadened the scope and possibilities of analytic theory, so do the contributions of minority analysts bring fresh ideas to familiar issues. The careful analytic exploration of human behavior and intrapsychic conflict present in racial and ethnic issues reveals data relevant to the analytic community as a whole. Further, in addition to their personal academic interests, minority analysts will continue to examine the unconscious cultural biases and assumptions that limit and weaken analytic theory. This is similar to the way in which the perspective of women has been instrumental in identifying the subtle and not-so-subtle male biases present in psychoanalytic theory.

The Challenge of Individualism

Another challenge facing the committee is the cultural emphasis on the individual. America has often been described as a culture rooted in individualism — not merely individuality, but an “ism,” a pervasive value with a deeply ingrained national character shaping a “habit of the heart.” Individualism can be an isolating, socially fragmenting force, the goal of which is freedom from others rather than freedom to be or to do. The emphasis on self determination, choice, and control can undervalue the tools and gifts that history and culture contribute to each person's capacity to think, survive, and grasp meaning in life. A focus on areas of similarity and commonality that constitute the psychic layer of community is scorned as sentimental. Issues of prejudice, racism, differences, domination, linguistics, diversities, and immigration are considered undeserving of study by the majority of students of human behavior.

This fallacy in thinking can divide and fragment us, permeating and compromising the foundations of our most valuable skill: our analytic selves that we carry into our consulting rooms. Patients will imply the need for a cognitive and emotional sense of a world that is integrated, whole, and coherent. CORED plans to help develop a world view, a holistic vision in which a person integrates what is sensed with what is known. As psychoanalysts we are in a unique position to help heal ancient hurts, create new visions, and bridge the two with energized and devoted practical efforts to reach out to segments of the population that can enrich us — and vice versa.

Finally, the resistance-within-a-resistance The American needs to address is the indifference with which the analytic community has perceived the African-American population, both as potential patients and practitioners. When pushed to address issues of diversity, analysts appear to be more comfortable with an international “cross-cultural” focus than with the homegrown problem of the racial divide. Progress is being made in this area, evidenced by the programs offered for the Fall Meeting in

December 1998, and CORED wants to be actively involved in those changes.

Jennings identified a major goal of CORED: to convince the members of The American that the effort to diversify the field of psychoanalysis is ultimately an responsibility of both the individual and the institute. If the analytic community is more exposed to populations previously marginalized by psychoanalysis (and the populations more exposed to the analytic community), it can have an energizing effect on both groups, provoking both to reevaluate how such an interaction could be mutually beneficial.

Using various models used by the Michigan Psychoanalytic Foundation, Institute, and Society, with outreach efforts to the African-American, South Asian-American, and Chaldean/Arabic-American communities, CORED is designing ways in which to work closely with the Committee on Societies to involve societies locally to help develop similar models across the country and to learn more about their efforts in this area. Through such forums as lectures, literary groups, and film discussions, there has been a growing relationship with populations previously largely ignored by psychoanalysis. This work will also promote and develop more scientific programming that addresses the unique psychological issues affecting minority patients, practitioners, and populations in the United States.