by PatriciaGherovici (Editor), Christopher Christian (Editor)
Psychoanalysis in the Barrios: Race, Class, and the Unconscious demonstrates that psychoanalytic principles can be applied successfully in disenfranchised Latino populations, refuting the misguided idea that psychoanalysis is an expensive luxury only for the wealthy.
As opposed to most Latin American countries, where psychoanalysis is seen as a practice tied to the promotion of social justice, in the United States psychoanalysis has been viewed as reserved for the well-to-do, assuming that poor people lack the sophistication that psychoanalysis requires, thus heeding invisible but no less rigid class boundaries. Challenging such discrimination, the authors testify to the efficacy of psychoanalysis in the barrios, upending the unfounded widespread belief that poor people are so consumed with the pressures of everyday survival that they only benefit from symptom-focused interventions. Sharing vivid vignettes of psychoanalytic treatments, this collection sheds light on the psychological complexities of life in the barrio that is often marked by poverty, migration, marginalization, and barriers of language, class, and race.
This interdisciplinary collection features essays by distinguished international scholars and clinicians. It represents a unique crossover that will appeal to readers in clinical practice, social work, counselling, anthropology, psychology, cultural and Latino studies, queer studies, urban studies, and sociology.
Format: Illustrated
Pages: 260
Edition: 1
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 21 Dec 2018
ISBN 10: 1138346403
ISBN 13: 9781138346406
Since its origins, psychoanalysis has been faced with two crucial questions: are its theories universal or culturally determined? Should treatment be made available to all, and if so, at what cost? These questions continue to haunt contemporary psychoanalytic practice. Psychoanalysis in the Barrios: Race, Class, and the Unconscious presents a diverse array of responses to and provocative reformulations of these century-old concerns, as for instance whether there is a cultural specificity to Cuban scopophilic perversions, or how one offers treatment to impoverished, working-class urban Americans? How does contemporary fiction, art, and music help us understand these questions? Patricia Gherovici's and Chris Christian's edited volume should be required reading for all analytic trainees and students of psychology. -Ruben Gallo, author of Freud's Mexico: Into the Wilds of Psychoanalysis and member of the board, Sigmund Freud Museum, Vienna