The latest issue of Psychoanalytic Dialogues (Volume 34, Issue 6) offers a rich exploration of contemporary psychoanalytic thought, focusing on themes of identity, relationality, mourning, and the pressing environmental crisis.
The issue opens with an editorial by Stephen Hartman, Amy Schwartz Cooney, Jack Foehl, and Lauren Levine.
Adam J. Rodríguez’s article, “Disallowing Multiplicity: Internalized Hierarchies, Dissociation, and Unformulated Bits of Self in a Poor, Mixed-Race Kid,” examines the internal struggles of identity formation amidst systemic hierarchies. This is followed by two insightful responses: Mary Kim Brewster’s “Thinking About the Unthought Multiracial Subject” and Elizabeth Corpt’s “Per (as in, by Means of) Versions Are Us,” both of which expand on Rodríguez’s exploration of multiracial identity and the challenges of integration. Rodríguez concludes the discussion with his reply, “The ‘Unthought Mixt Subject’ and Destroying Reality,” where he reflects on the implications of the commentary and further develops his ideas.
The theme of mourning and aggression takes center stage in the collaborative piece by R. Neslihan Ruganci, M. İrem Yildiz, Banu Bülbül, and Gökçe Silsüpür, “Is Healing Possible in Such a Context? Mourning and Aggression: The Shadow of the Never Commemorated.” This article explores unprocessed grief and its impact on individuals and communities. Brigitte Zakari’s response, “Acknowledging Guilt as a First Step Toward Mourning,” provides a Kleinian perspective on guilt and mourning. Penelope Starr-Karlin’s “Twinship’s Dark Doppelganger: Janus-Faced Belonging Under Right-Wing Populism” examines the shadow side of collective belonging, weaving together themes of identity and political context.
Susan Bodnar’s “The Fierce Urgency of Now: The Case for Including the Environmental Field in Clinical Work” is a standout piece that argues for integrating environmental awareness into psychoanalytic practice. This piece sparks a series of thoughtful discussions, including Susanna Federici’s “Rediscovering a Sensitivity for the Environment in the Clinical Encounter,” Jessica Somers’s “So Many Birds: Psychoanalytic Listening in the Time of Climate Crisis,” and Anna L. Stothart’s “The Red in the Sky.” Bodnar concludes this series with her reply, “Sensitivity and Birds in a Red Sky: Finding Relationality in an Environmental Dialogue.”
Click here to read the full issue.