Scapegoating and the ‘angry black woman’

The scapegoating of ‘angry black women’ achieves the paradoxical feat of ascribing power while simultaneously taking it away. This article aims to highlight how women of colour may be scapegoated as a result of intersecting, deep-rooted, and malignant forces operating within the (un)conscious, with a particular focus on racism. A lack of relevant literature is identified so to better understand the causation and effects of this phenomenon, group analytic concepts are cross-pollinated with black feminist, white feminist, and black political theory. It is suggested that conductors could do more to manage destructive forces in groups and so three anti-racist approaches are proposed. Concluding thoughts note that if our groups are permeated by the social, the same may be said of our theoretical framework. It is hoped that by consulting other specialist disciplines and integrating their knowledge into group analytic training and professional practice, our aims of being more inclusive, accessible, and diverse become ever-more attainable.

Towards the Development of Antiracist and Multicultural Graduate Training Programs in Behavior Analysis

Racist policies and inequity are prevalent in society; this includes higher education institutions. Many behavior analytic training programs have been complicit in omitting cultural humility and antiracist ideas in their curricula and institutional practices. As societal demands for allyship and transformational change increase, programs must rise to the challenge and act as agents of change in our clinical, professional, and personal communities. The current paper offers a multitude of strategies for institutions to develop an antiracist and multicultural approach. These recommendations encompass policies that may be promoted on the following levels: (a) organizational infrastructure and leadership, (b) curriculum and pedagogy, (c) research, and (d) with faculty, students, and staff.

‘Should I stay or should I go?’ Group-analytic training: inhabiting the threshold of ambivalence is a matter of power, privilege and position

Having in mind those gripped by ambivalence over whether to start, or stay on, the Qualifying Course in Group Analysis, we consider the training as one in ambivalence. We see ambivalence as an asset, not a hindrance. Forsaking familiar notions of ambivalence as weak and anxious, the task is to move towards a confident ambivalence. Using the ambivalent etymology of the word ‘threshold’ as an analytic lens, we use threshold not in the sense of a wooden solid boundary to be overcome, but rather as a threshing room. This article is co-written by two people different in terms of race, gender, sexuality, socio-economic background, age and experience. We argue that understanding the relationship between difference and ambivalence is crucial. This is not only because difference matters in itself. This article argues that ambivalence finds separate expressions through these differences, which act as a symbolic site. Our experience as Manchester trainees proves that threshing of the wheat from the chaff cannot happen on seemingly rigid boundaries. Rather, it happens in thresholds. In all this, examining the way ambivalence functions through power, privilege and position, we return to the ambivalent question: Do you want group analysis? And does it want you?

Analytic Training for Junior Investigators in Minority Aging Research: The Michigan Model

Since 1997, the Resource Centers for Minority Aging Research Program at the National Institute on Aging has been the model for training social and behavioral scientists in minority aging and health disparities research. The latest cycle of these Centers implemented a new structure for the analytic training of junior investigators and for advancing methodologic work relevant to improving the rigor of minority aging research. In this article, we describe the conceptual framework, logistical approaches, challenges, and lessons learned from our experience training junior investigators in methodology through the Michigan Center for Urban African American Aging Research over the past 20 years, with the goal of informing future analytic training efforts for the next generation of scholars focused on minority aging issues.

Combined Training of Candidates, Scholars, And Psychotherapists: A Model of Psychoanalytic Education for the Twenty-First Century

A new model of psychoanalytic education is proposed that will meet the challenges of educating candidates in a new century. Prospective candidates have varying opinions about the value of analytic training, opinions that reflect economic and cultural conditions different from those facing previous generations. Overall, today’s graduate-level students hold less favorable attitudes toward psychoanalysis than did their counterparts in the past. The proposed model calls for combining analytic candidates, psychotherapy students, and academic scholars for two years in a Psychoanalytic Studies Program (PSP), after which candidates take their subsequent years of training in a cohort made up exclusively of analytic candidates. A curriculum that focuses on the core concepts in psychoanalysis allows students in all three categories to learn the foundational knowledge of psychoanalysis that once was widely taught in graduate mental health programs. The philosophy that underlies the model and the structure and orientation of the course sequences are presented. Implementatiion of the model having shown positive results, its strengths and limitations are evaluated against the traditional model, in which candidates and psychotherapy students are educated separately.