A Peoples History of Psychoanalysis: From Freud to Liberation Psychology

(Hardback)

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Is psychoanalysis too White and upper class to be relevant to social and racial justice Are its ideas and practices too alien for people of color Can it shed light on why systems of oppression are so stable, and how oppression becomes internalized In A Peoples History of Psychoanalysis, the author reviews the oft-forgotten history of social justice in psychoanalysis, showing how Freud and the first generation of psychoanalysts developed a way of thinking about racial and economic inequality that informed later movements for Black and Latin American liberation. He traces a series of interpersonal and intellectual relationships between psychoanalysis and Black anti-Racist and post-colonial struggle culminating in the work of Frantz Fanon; Afro-Latinx and Latin American thinkers fighting anti-Blackness and capitalist exploitation which inspired Paulo Freires theory of critical consciousness; and Spanish psychiatrists and psychologists resisting fascism and inequality from Spain to El Salvador, setting the foundation for Ignacio Martin-Baros Liberation Psychology. Throughout this intellectual genealogy from Freud to Liberation Psychology the author outlines a consistent psychoanalytically-informed theory of race, class and the internalization of oppression developed by analytic thinkers fighting against inequality across generations. Such theorizing proves indispensable in contemporary political activism, pedagogy, and clinical work.

Reviews

Dr. Gaztambide's timely, fascinating, scholarly, and highly readable book revives an aspect of the history of psychoanalysis that is often forgotten: its involvement in the fight for social justice. The author has unearthed the works of several early psychoanalysts and analytically informed clinicians whose ideas were instrumental in the formation of psychoanalytic theory and practice, but who are not frequently discussed in our field.

Author Bio

Daniel Jos Gaztambide is assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the New School for Social Research and voluntary faculty member at Mount Sinai St. Lukes Hospital.