RACE AND PSYCHOANALYSIS: ENCOUNTERS WITH OTHERNESS
The 2026-2027 Colloquium Series
presented by the Psychoanalytic Society of the William Alanson White Institute
Maybe me? Radical Openness to the Me the Other Might See
presented by Anton Hart, PhD, FABP, FIPA
with Host & Moderator Stephen Friedman, PhD
FRIDAY, MAY 7, 2027 from 7:30-9:30pm/Eastern
Held in person at the Institute, 20 West 74th Street, New York City and via live stream online
1.5 CEs are available for attending. In order to receive your credit after attending, follow the instructions that are sent prior to the event.
ABOUT THIS EVENT
If psychoanalysis aspires to maximal exploration, how can analysts position themselves to persistently be as open as possible to what emerges within the co-participatory analytic process? The Freudian concept of transference has greatly enhanced our capacity to recognize and interpret patients’—and our own—unconscious, unformulated, solitary and relational experience. Yet might the lens of transference also occasion the jettisoning unwanted or potentially overwhelming aspects of experience in analysis?
Drawing on a dissociation-based, Ferenczian reconceptualization of unconsciousness, Sullivan described three realms of self-experience: the good me, the bad me, and the not me. The not me comprises aspects of oneself that cannot be borne as one’s own. Both patients and also analysts inevitably occupy this realm to some degree, but such not-me-ness constrains curiosity, exploration, and psychological growth. This represents and obstacle for increasingly free association and exploration.
This presentation introduces a “transitional” psychic position—the maybe me—and an accompanying analytic stance in which what feels impossible to recognize as “me” becomes available as a possible aspect of self. Extending the presenter’s previously proposed concept of radical openness, which involves listening to the “strange other” as if they are likely to be carrying personally unconscious information about oneself, the presentation explores the implications of this stance for a more fully realized, coparticipatory form of psychoanalytic inquiry.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Anton Hart, PhD, FABP, FIPA, is Training and Supervising Analyst and Faculty of the William Alanson White Institute. He is a member of the Editorial Boards of the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, Psychoanalytic Psychology and Contemporary Psychoanalysis. He has published articles and book chapters on a variety of subjects including psychoanalytic safety and mutuality, issues of racial, sexual and other diversities, and psychoanalytic pedagogy. He is a member of the group, Black Psychoanalysts Speak and, also, co-produced and was featured in the documentary film of the same name. He teaches at The New School for Social Research, The Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis, Columbia/New York Presbyterian Hospital, the National Institute for the Psychotherapies National Training Program, the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis, and the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis. Dr. Hart served as Co-Chair of the Holmes Commission on Racial Equality in American Psychoanalysis. He is completing a book for Routledge focusing on radical openness as a clinical and ethical orientation. He is in full-time private practice of psychoanalysis, individual and couple psychotherapy, psychotherapy supervision and consultation, and organizational consultation, in New York.
ABOUT THIS SERIES
The ability to live with differences, let alone to enjoy such living and to benefit from it, does not come easily and certainly not under its own impetus. This ability is an art which like all arts, requires study and exercise…
Zygmunt Bauman (2000)
Psychoanalysis at its best lingers in liminal spaces and gleans wisdom from encounters on the margin (bell hooks, 2000), with things unseen and experienced as ‘Other.’ The spirit of this colloquium series on Race and Psychoanalysis is to foster a dialogue about otherness in far flung places and deep within ourselves. The hope is to sustain the conversation and build authentic human connection without a collapse into a realm where defensiveness reigns, thoughts cannot be thought and feelings become rife with experiences of anxiety and shame.
Although the repair of centuries of racial oppression is impossible, the speakers in this colloquium series will address in an interdisciplinary fashion, the myriad ways in which psychoanalysis may help inform pathways towards some semblance of healing in the consulting room and beyond.
All the speakers will present their talks in person. We encourage everyone to attend in person and continue the tradition of meeting at the Institute. At the same time, the series will be offered on a live stream, allowing us to reach a broader audience beyond New York, and connect with those who are unable to join in person.
This series is presented at no charge to its audience. Please consider making a donation to The Psychoanalytic Society when registering.