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Saturday, April 11, 2026, 9:00 AM - 12:30 PM EST
Virtual: Zoom (link will be emailed the day prior)
Experiences of feeling haunted and of being in the presence of ghosts are prominent in narratives of patients/people of color in the United States and of mixed-race identity. A creative reading of Hans Loewald’s evocative statement on therapeutic action, the process of transforming “ghosts into ancestors,” is used to explore a way of being with and healing patients with mixed-race identities who are imprisoned in melancholic states. An extended case vignette of an Indian American psychoanalyst working with a patient with a mixed racial identity highlights racialized components of melancholia and illuminates specific countertransference states and enactments that can both impede and allow for the gradual and partial witnessing of racialized ghosts and their transformation into ancestors.
Learning Objectives
At the conclusion of this program, participants will be able to
Identify how our collective fantasies of racial purity and assumptions of white privilege impact mixed race individuals, and how our culture's disengagement with racial multiplicity leads to individuals of mixed race feeling a threat to their sense of racial existence.
Manage their personal reactions to race and identity by experiencing them as valuable guides in understanding what is happening in the here and now of the therapeutic process.
Identify methods to increase our patients’ ability to a.) feel more alive and love the varied aspects of their life experiences in the present moment, b.) lessen the dissociative splits in their racial identity, and c) have more experiences in which they can “stand in the spaces” of their racial identities with caring and respect for their multiplicity.
Demonstrate the mourning processes of patients with mixed race and racial identity, which is conceptualized as an ongoing process of coming to terms with loss, psychic pain, and vulnerability with our internalized objects and relationships.
RIAPP is committed to ensuring that cost is never a barrier to psychodynamic and psychoanalytic learning and knows that removing this barrier is imperative to bringing in new voices and perspectives, and collective growth. As such, RIAPP offers a $0 option for membership and events. If you choose to use the $0 option, please enter the discount code FREE at checkout.
RIAPP Members receive discounted rates. To become a member, go to the “Join” tab at the top of this page.
Note: Registration will close at 12pm (noon) on Friday. The Zoom link will be sent via email by 6PM on Friday.
Saturday, April 11, 2026, 9:00 AM - 12:30 PM EST
Virtual: Zoom (link will be emailed the day prior)
Experiences of feeling haunted and of being in the presence of ghosts are prominent in narratives of patients/people of color in the United States and of mixed-race identity. A creative reading of Hans Loewald’s evocative statement on therapeutic action, the process of transforming “ghosts into ancestors,” is used to explore a way of being with and healing patients with mixed-race identities who are imprisoned in melancholic states. An extended case vignette of an Indian American psychoanalyst working with a patient with a mixed racial identity highlights racialized components of melancholia and illuminates specific countertransference states and enactments that can both impede and allow for the gradual and partial witnessing of racialized ghosts and their transformation into ancestors.
Learning Objectives
At the conclusion of this program, participants will be able to
Identify how our collective fantasies of racial purity and assumptions of white privilege impact mixed race individuals, and how our culture's disengagement with racial multiplicity leads to individuals of mixed race feeling a threat to their sense of racial existence.
Manage their personal reactions to race and identity by experiencing them as valuable guides in understanding what is happening in the here and now of the therapeutic process.
Identify methods to increase our patients’ ability to a.) feel more alive and love the varied aspects of their life experiences in the present moment, b.) lessen the dissociative splits in their racial identity, and c) have more experiences in which they can “stand in the spaces” of their racial identities with caring and respect for their multiplicity.
Demonstrate the mourning processes of patients with mixed race and racial identity, which is conceptualized as an ongoing process of coming to terms with loss, psychic pain, and vulnerability with our internalized objects and relationships.
RIAPP is committed to ensuring that cost is never a barrier to psychodynamic and psychoanalytic learning and knows that removing this barrier is imperative to bringing in new voices and perspectives, and collective growth. As such, RIAPP offers a $0 option for membership and events. If you choose to use the $0 option, please enter the discount code FREE at checkout.
RIAPP Members receive discounted rates. To become a member, go to the “Join” tab at the top of this page.
Note: Registration will close at 12pm (noon) on Friday. The Zoom link will be sent via email by 6PM on Friday.