“When Racialized Ghosts Refuse to Become Ancestors: Tasting the ‘Blood of Recognition’ in Racial Melancholia and Mixed-Race Identities”

Dhwani Shah, MD

Friday, September 16, 2022

6:30PM-8:30PM (EDT)

PPSC

Live Webinar on Zoom!

$60 Regular Admission and $40 Student 

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER 

*This talk provides 2 hours of continuing education credits for LCSWs, LMSWs, LPs, LMHCs, LCATs, and licensed psychologists.

Experiences of feeling haunted and of being in the presence of ghosts are prominent in narratives of patients/people of color in the United States and of mixed-race identity. A creative reading of Hans Loewald’s evocative statement on therapeutic action, the process of transforming “ghosts into ancestors,” is used to explore a way of being with and healing patients with mixed-race identities who are imprisoned in melancholic states. An extended case vignette of an Indian American psychoanalyst working with a patient with a mixed racial identity highlights racialized components of melancholia and illuminates specific countertransference states and enactments that can both impede and allow for the gradual and partial witnessing of racialized ghosts and their transformation into ancestors.

DHWANI SHAH, MD is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst currently practicing in Princeton, NJ. He is a clinical associate faculty member in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and a faculty member at the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia. He completed his residency in psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine where he also completed a fellowship in treatment resistant mood disorders at University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He has authored articles on topics ranging from neuroscience, mood disorders, and psychoanalysis. Dr Shah’s forthcoming book, entitled The Analyst’s Torment: Unbearable Mental States in Countertransference – is due out in September, 2022 published by Phoenix Publishing House.

Learning Objectives

After attending this presentation, participants will be able to:

● describe how our collective fantasies of racial purity and assumptions of white privilege impact mixed race individuals.

● analyze how the therapist’s personal reactions to race and identity in the clinical material can be a valuable guide in understanding what is happening in the here and now of the therapeutic process.

● appraise our patients’ ability to have more experiences in which they can “stand in the spaces” of their racial identities with caring and respect for their multiplicity.

Agenda

6:30 – 7:00: How our collective fantasies of racial purity and assumptions of white privilege impact mixed race individuals.

7:00 – 7:30: How the therapist’s personal reactions to race and identity in the clinical material can be a valuable guide in understanding what is happening in the here and now of the therapeutic process.

7:30 – 8:00: Appraising our patient’s ability to have more experiences in which they can “stand in the spaces” of their racial identities with caring and respect for her multiplicity.

8:00 – 8:30: The mourning processes of patients with mixed race and racial identity. Q & A.

*For a refund to a PPSC Annex event, we must receive a cancellation notice 24 hours prior to the event. Please contact annex-ops@ppsc.org if you want to cancel within this time frame or if you have any other questions or concerns.

*Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Study Center is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychoanalysts #P-0040, licensed mental health counselors #MHC-0166 and licensed creative arts therapists #CAT-0083. We are recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #0054 and by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists #PSY-0118. Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Study Center is also approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Study Center maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

*PPSC does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age, sexual orientation, sexual preference, gender, gender identity, marital status, national or ethnic origin in the administration of its admissions and educational policies.