110: Introduction to the Diversities
Instructors
Sarita Singh, M.D.
Carlos Alberto Sanchez, M.D.
February 18 – March 11, 2026
Wednesdays, 8:40 – 10:00 pm
If you are attending the course remotely, please click here
Course Description
This course aims to deepen participants’ understanding of diversity and otherness through a psychoanalytic and psychodynamic lens. It examines how intrapsychic processes shape perceptions of difference and contribute to experiences of “othering” within the self, in interpersonal relationships, and across broader social and cultural contexts. Through reflective discussion and clinical exploration, participants will enhance their capacity to recognize and work with these dynamics in the consultation room and to foster similar self-reflective awareness in their patients.
Course Objectives
Upon completion of this course, students will be able:
- To develop psychoanalytic clinical skills for recognizing and working with intrapsychic
and intersubjective processes of difference and otherness as they emerge through
transference, countertransference, and unconscious dynamics in the consultation room. - To foster reflective curiosity and cultural humility by examining one’s own unconscious
responses to difference and otherness and their influence on clinical understanding and
therapeutic engagement.
Evaluation Method
Each student’s participation in class discussion and his or her demonstration of understanding of the course objectives and reading material is assessed in a written evaluation by the instructor(s).
These articles are protected under relevant copyright regulations. They are available in the New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute Electronic Reserve for your convenience, and for your personal use.
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READINGS FOR 2026 ARE CONFIRMED.
I. Defense Mechanisms Involved in Othering
CLASS 1: February 18, 2026
REQUIRED READINGS
Hart, Anton. (2017). From multicultural competence to radical openness: A psychoanalytic engagement of otherness. The American Psychoanalyst, 51(1), 12–27
Layton, Lynne. (2000). Cultural hierarchies, splitting, and the dynamic unconscious. Journal for the Psychoanalysis of Culture & Society, 5(1), 65–71.
Klein, M. (1946). Notes on Some Schizoid Mechanisms. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 27, 99–110
SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS
Ogden, T. H. (1979). On projective identification. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 60, 357–373.
Ferenczi, S. (1932). Confusion of tongues between the adults and the child —The language of tenderness and of passion. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 30: 225-230
II. Race
CLASS 2: February 25, 2026
REQUIRED READINGS
Stoute, B. J. (2019). Racial socialization and thwarted mentalization: Psychoanalytic reflections from the lived experience of James Baldwin’s America. American Imago, 76(3), 335-357
Davids, M. F. (2016) Ethnic purity, otherness and anxiety: the model of internal racism. Psyche-Z Psychoanal, 70, 779-804 (in German)
Holmes, D.E. (2022). Getting to where we need to get: A meaningful step towards understanding and remedying white privilege. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 32(6), 639-644.
SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS
Fanon, G. (1952). Black Skin, White Masks (C.L. Markmann, Trans.). Grove Press. Chapter 5: “The Fact of Blackness.”
Morgan, Helen. 2014 “Between Fear and Blindness”. Chapter in Thinking Space (Frank Lowe, ed). Routledge.
Baldwin, J. (1963). The Fire Next Time. Dial Press (Vintage International edition published 1993).
Anen, S. (2022) Narcissistic States of White Privilege and the Constructive Potential of Shame. Psychoanalytic Dialogues 32:621-638
III. Gender
CLASS 3: March 4, 2026
REQUIRED READINGS
Laplanche, J. (2007). Gender, Sex and the Sexual. Studies in Gender and Sexuality 8(2) 201-219. Read pages 201 through “I come now to…” on page 210.
Goldner, V. (1991). Toward a critical relational theory of gender. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 1(3), 249–272.
Saketopoulou, A. (2020). Thinking psychoanalytically, thinking better: Reflections on transgender. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 101(5), 1019–1030.
SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS
1. Stoller, R. J. (1964). A contribution to the study of gender identity. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 19, 129-154.
Blass, R. B., Bell, D., & Saketopoulou, A. (2021). Can we think psychoanalytically about transgenderism? An expanded live Zoom debate with David Bell and Avgi Saketopoulou, moderated by Rachel Blass. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 102(5), 968-1000.
IV. Immigration
CLASS 4: March 11, 2026
REQUIRED READINGS
Ainslie, R. C., Tummala-Narra, P., Harlem, A., Barbanel, L., & Ruth, R. (2013). Contemporary psychoanalytic views on the experience of immigration. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 30(4), 663–679.
Akhtar, S. (1995). A third individuation: Immigration, identity, and the psychoanalytic process. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 43(4), 1051–1084.
SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS
Yi, Kris. (2014). Toward formulation of ethnic identity beyond the binary of White oppressor and racial other. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 31(3), 426-434