RACE AND PSYCHOANALYSIS: ENCOUNTERS WITH OTHERNESS
The 2026-2027 Colloquium Series
presented by the Psychoanalytic Society of the William Alanson White Institute
Clinical Encounters with Otherness: The Conundrum of White Empathy
presented by Stephen Friedman, PhD, LCSW
FRIDAY, October 2nd, 2026 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 the event, follow the instructions that are sent prior to the event.
ABOUT THIS EVENT
The conundrum of white empathy summarizes the way in a cross-racial encounter the well-intentioned white analyst and the Black patient are immediately “caught” trying to navigate the reverberations of centuries of racial inequality and hierarchy. The empathic gesture inaugurating the clinical conversation allows for the possibility of authentic engagement and the inevitability of perpetration that enacts racial harm. The clinical space can never transcend the oppressive order. Yet the seduction of a color blind space can draw in both the white clinician hoping to avoid implication in their participation and benefit from anti-Black racism, and the Black patient always wary of white spaces perhaps hoping there will be a chance for some respite, but certainly not transcendence. The possibility of repair is minimal if the white analyst’s subtle unconscious investment in perpetration remains out of awareness which means that an important part of the Black patient’s lived experience in the larger world and in the consulting room is effectively off limits. Ways of combatting this silencing tendency and opening up dialogue to confront directly the conundrum of white empathy, as well as the limits of dialogue and efforts at repair, will be explored in this talk.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Stephen Friedman, PhD, LCSW, is a graduate of the William Alanson White Institute. He is currently a supervisor of psychotherapy and is an Associate Editor of Contemporary Psychoanalysis. He is also an MSW and PhD graduate of the Smith School for Social Work and is an adjunct Associate Professor and Clinical Instructor at Smith School for Social Work. Dr. Friedman is also on the faculty at the William Alanson White Institute, the National Institute of Psychotherapies, the Manhattan Institute of Psychoanalysis, China American Psychoanalytic Alliance, and the NYU School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry. In 2019 he published a paper in Smith College Studies in Social Work entitled, Exploration of Racial Enactments in an Interracial Dyad to Foster the Strengthening of Voice and Identity in African American Male Adolescents. His doctoral dissertation (2024) was entitled, Interrogating Whiteness: An In-depth Study of Race and Psychoanalysis in Cross-Racial dyads. He presented Crying for different reasons: The conundrum of white empathy in an anti-Black racist world, at a 2026 international conference in Japan. Dr. Friedman is this year’s President of the Psychoanalytic Society at the William Alanson White Institute and is the organizer of this colloquium series. He is in private practice in New York City.
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.