Lynne Layton, Marianna Leavy-Sperounis, and Lara Sheehi: Toward a Social Psychoanalysis

In her new book, Toward a Social Psychoanalysis: Culture, Character, and Normative Unconscious Processes, Lynne Layton elaborates on a theory of social psychoanalysis as she expands on earlier theorists’ ideas of social character, exploring how dominant ideologies and culturally mandated, hierarchical identity prescriptions are lived in individual and relational conflict. Through clinical and cultural examples, Lynne describes how enactments of what she calls "normative unconscious processes" reinforce cultural inequalities of race, sex, gender, and class both inside and outside the clinic, and at individual, interpersonal, and institutional levels.

In this conversation with members of Section IX, Lynne and Section IX Board Members Marianna Leavy-Sperounis (also the book's editor) and Lara Sheehi offer perspectives into what we mean when we say "'TOWARD' a Social Psychoanalysis." What does social psychoanalysis look like as it is already being lived and practiced by clinicians, students, scholars and activists? Where is there forward momentum? And what do we envision for our future, and Section IX's role in this?

This virtual event was organized by the Education and Training Committee of Section IX (Psychoanalysis for Social Responsibility) of Division 39 of the American Psychological Association (Society for Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychology) on January 15, 2020.

You can find more information about Section IX and join our organization on the website for our publication, The Psychoanalytic Activist: https://psychoanalyticactivist.com​

References:

Studies in Gender and Sexuality, Special Edition: Black, Indigenous, Women of Color Talk Back: Decentering Normative Psychoanalysis: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hsgs2...

Subini Ancy Annamma: Excavating Possibilities: Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit) in Education (52 mins, 28 seconds).
   • Subini Annamma on "Excavating Possibilitie...  

Anti-Oedipus (book), Gilles Delueze and Felix Guattari https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/bo...

Chaosophy (book), Felix Guattari
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/chaosophy

Join the Reckoning
https://jointhereckoning.org/

The Grassroots Reparations Campaign (Section IX is a co-sponsor):
https://grassrootsreparations.org/

Lynne Layton provided the following land acknowledgement, but it was cut-off from the beginning of the recording:
"I want to start with a land acknowledgment. When I first began doing land acknowledgments, I must admit that it felt somewhat performative, done in solidarity but not personally felt as deeply as it has come to feel. My involvement in a grassroots reparations campaign over the past 3 years has made me strikingly aware of how central stolen land from Native Americans, and then from African Americans, has been in our white supremacist past and present. I am speaking to you today from Brookline, Massachusetts, occupied Massachusett land."