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I-Thou and the Other: Intersubjectivity and Cross Racial Encounter by Samir Patel, M.D.

*Please join us from 6:45 PM - 7:30PM for a welcome party to kick off the 2023-2024 season!

This event will be IN PERSON at Central Congregational Church, 296 Angell St, Providence, RI 02906

(Enter on Diman Pl. follow the arrows down the hallway to the Fireplace room)

During this workshop, we will examine through a lecture, a video clip, and a facilitated discussion the ways in which the Other negotiates an I-Thou Intersubjectivity in a cross-racial dyad. Here the Other (capital O-Other) is a psychic construct―a repository of all that is dissociated from individuals in themselves and thought to exist in or represent others that are different, serving an important stabilizing function. The Other is also the Lacanian symbolic register, which among other things represents rules and regulations of what should and should not be mentalized in the dyad. This will be an interactive session with opportunity for self-reflection and dialogue with each other.



Objectives:

1: Describe the psychological concept of the capital-O Other and its role in self identity and psychic stability.

2: Identify at least two ways in which the Other impacts engagement with others, that is out patients, especially when the clients are racially different

3. Discuss methods to deepen the therapeutic relationship in face of this Other 



Samir M Patel, MD, MPH, is a psychiatrist in private practice in Providence RI. He also supervises and teaches psychiatry residents as an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior of Alpert Medical School at Brown. After spending his formative years in India and completing medical school there as well, he moved to the US to pursue a Masters in Public Health at the University of Michigan, and obtain his psychiatric training at Duke University Medical Center and University of Pennsylvania Hospitals. He is a member of RIAPP and one of the founding chairs of the Committee on Anti-racism, Diversity and Equity of the American Academy of Psychotherapists, a multidisciplinary organization of psychotherapists. He enjoys cooking for his husband and friends, singing, reading and traveling.



References:

Thomas, K. Buberian Intersubjectivity and Racist Encounters. A Priori: The Brown Journal of Philosophy 6 (2021): 57–81.

George, S. Trauma and Race: A Lacanian Study of African American Racial Identity. Baylor University Press, 2016. Project MUSE muse.jhu.edu/book/44556.

Morrison, T and Coates, T. The Origin of Others. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017. Web.

Wallis, J and Singh, R. “Constructions and Enactments of Whiteness: a Discursive Analysis.” Journal of Family Therapy, vol. 36, no. S1, 2014, pp. 39–64, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6427.2012.00602.x.

Cénat, J. M. Complex Racial Trauma: Evidence, Theory, Assessment, and Treatment.Perspectives  on Psychological Science, 0 (2022):. https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916221120428

Terian, S.K. The Look and Intersubjectivity: Insights from Sartre and Schutz for Race Relations. Soc 60, 580–591 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-023-00842-z



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November 4

Fall Conference: Clinical Implications of Recent Developments in Neuro-Psychoanalysis by Mark Solms, Ph.D.