Voices and Whispers: Race, (Dis)rupture and Repair: Reply to Stevens, Straker, and Tummala-Narra

Abstract

Voices of privilege and power dominate our profession. In this paper, we reflect on the process of writing together about racially constellated rupture and repair between Black patient/trainee and White therapist. In the project we reflect upon, the Black patient/trainee’s voice was privileged, subverting the more typical voice of the therapist. Furthermore, the project involved a collaboration between Black trainees and White trainer, raising complex issues of voice and power. We pick up on the theme of respondents to this paper concerning the possibilities and impossibilities of finding and exercising voice, as well as the theme of silence and the difficult of articulating racial power dynamics. Echoing our original aims of subverting dominant voices, we do so by each reflecting personally on our process. We suggest that, in the face of racial rupture, responses of disruption are potentially as productive as processes of repair.

This article responds to:

Racial Trauma and Dissociated Worlds within Psychotherapy: A Discussion of “Racial Difference, Rupture, and Repair: A View from the Couch and Back”

Covering and Uncovering Race: A Discussion of “Racial Difference, Rupture, and Repair: A View from the Couch and Back”

Racial Alienation, the (Im)possibilities of Resolution, and the Absent/Present Other: Vexing Vantage Points from the Patient/Trainee: A Discussion of “Racial Difference, Rupture, and Repair: A View from the Couch and Back”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hopolang Matee

Hopolang Matee, M.A., is an Associate Lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the University of the Witwatersrand, and a practicing clinical psychologist. At postgraduate level, she teaches on the M.A. Clinical Psychology and Honors programs. She is currently completing her Ph.D. through the psychoanalytic psychotherapy by publication program at Wits. Her Ph.D. explores Black absent fathers’ reconnection with their children. Her research interests focus on fatherhood and masculinity, and on the intersection of traditional practices and psychology through a psychoanalytic lens.

Zinhle Vilakazi

Zinhle Vilakazi, M.A., is a qualified Clinical Psychologist who is currently doing her community service in the Department of Correctional Services in South Africa. Her current research focus is on gender, identity and violence.

Olwethu Jwili

Olwethu Jwili, M.A., completed her training as a Clinical Psychologist at the University of the Witwatersrand and is currently in private practice. Her research interests focus on areas of race, gender, and identity relations as well as on social discourses shaping these issues. She has previously been involved in research on health care barriers affecting rural populations and on youth sexuality.

Carol Long

Carol Long, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of the Witwatersrand, and a practicing clinical psychologist. Her research interests focus on issues of diversity, difference and marginality from a psychoanalytic perspective. She is particularly interested in the intersection of identities, and through this lens has explored the intersections between such identities as race and gender, motherhood and HIV, masculinity and fatherhood. Her current research projects focus on the intersection of identities within the context of psychotherapy.