Reflections on Hollander’s “Hegemonic Mind” and How to Treat It

Abstract

This response to Hollander’s consideration of the “hegemonic mind” critiques her social psychoanalytic formulation of man’s inclination to disempower the many to serve the personal, particularly the financial desires of the few. In the spirit of her point of view, I propose that this inclination is a function of active if not always conscious motivation, not a manifestation of “social malaise.” Further, I raise for consideration the fact that hegemonic “fever” is quite contagious, noting that those perpetrating it, and those on its receiving end, are attracted to it. I also consider that hegemony is an important manifest content, the latent determinant of which is a stubborn universal tendency for humans to show ill will toward one another. Through clinical examples I show that hegemonic formulations add to but do not replace other conceptualizations of how to understand and work with our patients’ personal and social dysfunction.

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Dorothy Evans Holmes

Dorothy Evans Holmes, Ph.D., is Teaching, Training, and Supervising Psychoanalyst at the Psychoanalytic Center of the Carolinas. In addition, she is Professor Emeritus of Clinical Psychology at The George Washington University, where she was Program Director and Director of Clinical Training in the Center for Professional Psychology. She is also Teaching, Training, and Supervising Analyst Emeritus at the Baltimore Washington Center for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. Dr. Holmes has written extensively on intrapsychic aspects of race and gender, and their impact on psychoanalytic treatment process. She has served on numerous boards and committees of the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA) and the American Psychological Association, and on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis and the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. She currently serves on APsaA’s Program Committee and its Task Force on Diversity. Presently, Dr. Holmes is in private practice in Bluffton, South Carolina.