Holding History: Undoing Racial Unconsciousness in Groups

ABSTRACT

This article examines the history of racism in American society and its sequelae for African Americans, from enslavement and lynching through contemporary manifestations. It describes the consequences of systemic oppression in the form of “color-blindness,” the denial of racial stereotypes and biases carried both in the larger social sphere and within psychotherapy groups. Using clinical examples, the authors address the difficulty for White therapists of becoming “woke” to their own unconscious racism. Failing to do so, the authors suggest, creates conditions for reenacting traumas of invisibility, exclusion, and more profound injury. It is proposed that sharing in communal mourning for the injury to African Americans holds promise for healing when undertaken with the awareness that doing so entails therapists and group members exposing themselves to the pain of others.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank Robert O’Hara, from whose play Insurrection: Holding History (1999) we borrow part of our title.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Craig Haen

Craig Haen is an Adjunct Faculty Member at New York University. Nina K. Thomas is a Clinical Associate Professor at New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis.

Nina K. Thomas

Craig Haen is an Adjunct Faculty Member at New York University. Nina K. Thomas is a Clinical Associate Professor at New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis.