The Myth of Micro-Aggression

Abstract

As psychoanalysis teaches, things are rarely what they seem to be. Micro-aggressions are complex enactments illustrating how we embody race in psychoanalysis, history defining the future in fleeting moments that endure. Through my own personal story, as well as, being deeply familiar with analytic institute life, a deconstruction of the micro-aggressive moment is offered, revealing it to be anything but “micro” and fundamentally paradoxical. The familiar surprise of micro-aggression is made up of contemporaneous self-state switches forged from unconscious trans-generational trauma and lived history, and shaped by the structural context of an institute. After describing the many ways dissociated micro-aggressive experiences author an individual’s and an institute’s narrative, suggestions to increase racial safety in institutes are offered, including: antidotes to the inevitability of micro-aggression and shame in analytic training, guidelines for more open communication about race, the necessity for historical self-disclosure to discover hidden similarities of difference, the shared burden of only-ness and the need for kinship networks to encourage differentiation of the self as well as systemic change. Finally, a proposal is offered for how analytic institutes might ally to create more balanced racial representation.

Keywords:

• micro-aggression
• racial shame
• psychoanalytic training
• psychoanalytic institutes
• diversity initiatives
• kinship networks

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ron Taffel

Ron Taffel, Ph.D., is Chair, Board of Directors of the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy. He is the author of eight books and over one hundred professional and popular articles translated into numerous languages. His works include Childhood Unbound, The Politics of Mood, From Crucible to Community and The Millennial Effect: How Younger Patients are Leading Therapists to New Places. Dr. Taffel’s training in psychoanalysis, family systems and child therapy led to his focus on the intersectionality of treatment, the socio-political context, human development and the creation of community.