Psychoanalysis claims objectivity while psychodynamically dismissing those who raise institutional racism

Evidence

First by instituting intensive forms of professional self-scrutiny directed at the mastery and evaluation of its own internal clinical practice, psychoanalysis seeks to place itself “above suspicion” of cultural bias, and to lay claim to objectivity as a natural science of the Unconscious. Yet this scrutiny has proved to be highly selective; it has not, for example, extended to the fact that very few analysts or patients are recruited from black, Asian, or other nonwhite ethnic minorities, nor does it consider the structured neglect of questions of race and ethnicity in the conduct of training and the talking cure. Instead suspicion is directed outwards; the motivations of all those who raise the issue of “institutional racism,” whether from their position on the couch, or the academic podium, are interpreted “psychodynamically” in such a way as to invalidate the arguments being made (Dalai, 1998). — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1258

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Psychoanalysis normalizes patients into a sick society rather than curing it — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 674; Psychoanalytic method condemns its study subjects regardless of the result — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1599; Academic objectification tolerates abuse as long as the mind functions — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 45 (+1 more)