Thursday, November 12th, 2020

Emily Kuriloff, Psy.D

Deborah Sherman, BC-DMT, LMHC – Discussant

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BABY’S HEAD: Between Victim and Victimizer

Without the absent ones, there would be nothing.
Without the fugitives, nothing is firm.
Without the forgotten, nothing for certain.
— The Disappeared/The Vanished  by Hans Magnus Enzenberger
 
After speaking at a German psychoanalytic conference meant to address the impact of the Holocaust upon Jews and Germans in the 21st century, the weekend began and ended with little or no meaningful dialogue. Unctuous confessionals, sanctimonious denial, finger pointing and hurt ensued instead. How similar this felt to exchanges I have  experienced when esteemed and “well meaning” white psychoanalysts, including myself, try and fail to engage in conversation about racism with black professionals. It is precisely such ” interactions,” those between victims and perpetrators that this talk attempts to explore, particularly the ways in which the liminal space of the creative imagination can work to prevent, or to  prepare space in which dialogue may begin.


Location:

Virtual, via Zoom   
 
(must be registered to receive a Zoom link)

Emily Kuriloff, Psy.D  is Director of Clinical Education, and a Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst at the William Alanson White Institute in New York. She is former Book Review Editor, and is on the Editorial board of the Journal, Contemporary Psychoanalysis. Her scholarly writing includes the intersection between culture, politics, and psychoanalytic theory and practice, and the relationship between action and reflection, body and mind. Her book, Contemporary Psychoanalysis and The Legacy of the Third Reich, explores how the trauma of the Shoah transformed the development of psychoanalysis at its apex and beyond, and was published by Routledge in 2014.  A volume of essays exploring the impact upon prominent psychoanalysts who have returned to their homelands after exile or immigration is forthcoming. It will be edited by Dr. Kuriloff and Dr. Evelyn Hartman, and published by Routledge next year.

Deborah Sherman, BC-DMT, LMHC is a Dance/Movement Therapist and Psychoanalyst in Private Practice in New York. Deborah is on faculty at NIP, ICP, WTCI and IPSS, in NYC and supervises at IPSS and ICP’s Psychotherapy Center for Gender and Sexuality. Deborah chairs the coordinating committee at IPSS and has recently facilitated an Anti-racism group for IAPSP as well as a weekly BLM2WT (Black Lives Matter to White Therapists) peer group. Her most recent publication was in “Studies in Gender and Sexuality”, 2019.