The Holmes Commission Report

[PsyDr]

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The American Psychoanalytic Association put out their report on race and stuff.

The Holmes Commission on Racial Equality

APsA’s Holmes Commission investigates systemic racism in American psychoanalysis and works to identify and remedy its manifestations across the field.

apsa.org

TL; DR: Tiny profession is in a tizzy. Different backgrounds lead to different experiences. Some people are racist, some people are clueless, and some people want to see things. Maybe everyone should be cool. In session enactments of racial stuff is expected. Also maybe someone should look into different educational approaches.


Also: This report has some of the funniest unintended racism out there. You know when someone is trying to be sensitive, but they accidentally say some negative things? Like that.

 

[WisNeuro]

How hard did they have to recruit to not get mostly 70+ year old white dudes who live in the northeastern region of the US to be on the commission?

 

[cara susanna]

The American Psychoanalytic Association put out their report on race and stuff.

The Holmes Commission on Racial Equality

APsA’s Holmes Commission investigates systemic racism in American psychoanalysis and works to identify and remedy its manifestations across the field.

apsa.org

TL; DR: Tiny profession is in a tizzy. Different backgrounds lead to different experiences. Some people are racist, some people are clueless, and some people want to see things. Maybe everyone should be cool. In session enactments of racial stuff is expected. Also maybe someone should look into different educational approaches.


Also: This report has some of the funniest unintended racism out there. You know when someone is trying to be sensitive, but they accidentally say some negative things? Like that.

Can you please provide summaries like this for every major report in our field?

 

[deleted836592]

The Holmes Commission was a joke. The APsA created significant hype about this project and its promise to reshape the psychoanalytic community's direction, only for it to yield "insights" that an intuitive 4-year-old could have predicted.

 

[WisNeuro]

The Holmes Commission was a joke. The APsA created significant hype about this project and its promise to reshape the psychoanalytic community's direction, only for it to yield "insights" that an intuitive 4-year-old could have predicted.

Yes, but, tell me about your mother.

 

[Ollie123]

I appreciate that in true psychoanalysis fashion even their "executive summary" is about 5-10x longer than needed. Where else would "We developed the practice of beginning each Commission meeting with a rollcall and inspirational music or text message." even make it into the main report, let alone an executive summary?


"We met on Tuesday afternoons mostly, except for one time in December. Jim was about 5 minutes late once. We reflected on this as a group prior to his arrival and collectively agreed it was because his father must have beaten him with a watch when he was a child. He insisted it was due to an accident on the freeway, a clear indication of denial and showcasing a disappointing level of awareness for a member of our community. Anyways, what are we writing about again? Oh yeah..."

I could have fun with this.

 

[cara susanna]

I appreciate that in true psychoanalysis fashion even their "executive summary" is about 5-10x longer than needed. Where else would "We developed the practice of beginning each Commission meeting with a rollcall and inspirational music or text message." even make it into the main report, let alone an executive summary?


"We met on Tuesday afternoons mostly, except for one time in December. Jim was about 5 minutes late once. We reflected on this as a group prior to his arrival and collectively agreed it was because his father must have beaten him with a watch when he was a child. He insisted it was due to an accident on the freeway, a clear indication of denial and showcasing a disappointing level of awareness for a member of our community. Anyways, what are we writing about again? Oh yeah..."

I could have fun with this.

Yeah, I tried to read the summary and gave up.

If you're bored and want to have fun, please keep going. I was in a meeting when I read this and you literally made me laugh out loud--good thing my mic was off!

 

[MCParent]

It….. it literally opens by taking a shot at the Emancipation Proclamation….

 

[WisNeuro]

It….. it literally opens by taking a shot at the Emancipation Proclamation….

Does it use the word "uppity?"

 

[EnPsychlopedia]

Who’d have ever thought that a historically very patriarchal, Eurocentric pseudointellectual movement would have issues with race and diversity? /s

 

[cara susanna]

That's why I love how all of the criticism of CBT as "capitalist" or whatever comes from people who love Freud, Jung, Lacan, etc.

 

[PsyDr]

Who’d have ever thought that a historically very patriarchal, Eurocentric pseudointellectual movement would have issues with race and diversity? /s

This is a bunch of old people being clueless that life has changed, and a bunch of young people who are clueless about history. The olds and the youngs are equally clueless.

1) The youngs seem to conflate Jewish with white. Jewish people were not considered “white” until relatively recently (e.g., closed/exclusive institutions, quotas in the Ivys, zoning laws in the NE, a ton of movies). This doesn't even matter,because NO ONE can effectively use the term "race" in this entire document. China is not a race, it's a country.

2) The olds seem surprised that trainees are not in PP, financially well off, done with childcare, and established in their professional network.

3) All parties read the genital based theories of a coked up, suicidal,cerebral palsy theorist/neurologist, and chose to pursue this line of education. Then these people were surprised that there are some sexist, and ableist things in there. Really? Let's also be surprised that an Austrian was not warm and inviting.

4) Real statistics? Naw dawg, let's stick to "percentage". Better yet, let's just ask people questions that are not psychometrically sound. /s

5) The experts in symbolism really didn't see the similarities between one group that had an attempted genocide, and other groups that had attempted genocides.

6) My personal favorite line, "...white and BIPOC but presumably mostly white...". Let's make presumptions. Great professional work. I'm sure there are not subconsious thought processes in making assumptions. /s

7) One faculty member complains that student feedback doesn't have any consequences for the students.

8) Apparently psychoanalysis has its own media. Are they really arguing about movies made by psychoanalysts, for psychoanalysts? These movies have to worse than student art films.

9) How many psychoanalysts can there really be? Are they really trying to keep people out? I get strict admissions criteria for the independent licensure as an analyst thing in NY, but for the rest of it......

 

[EnPsychlopedia]

This is a bunch of old people being clueless that life has changed, and a bunch of young people who are clueless about history. The olds and the youngs are equally clueless.

1) The youngs seem to conflate Jewish with white. Jewish people were not considered “white” until relatively recently (e.g., closed/exclusive institutions, quotas in the Ivys, zoning laws in the NE, a ton of movies). This doesn't even matter,because NO ONE can effectively use the term "race" in this entire document. China is not a race, it's a country.

2) The olds seem surprised that trainees are not in PP, financially well off, done with childcare, and established in their professional network.

3) All parties read the genital based theories of a coked up, suicidal,cerebral palsy theorist/neurologist, and chose to pursue this line of education. Then these people were surprised that there are some sexist, and ableist things in there. Really? Let's also be surprised that an Austrian was not warm and inviting.

4) Real statistics? Naw dawg, let's stick to "percentage". Better yet, let's just ask people questions that are not psychometrically sound. /s

5) The experts in symbolism really didn't see the similarities between one group that had an attempted genocide, and other groups that had attempted genocides.

6) My personal favorite line, "...white and BIPOC but presumably mostly white...". Let's make presumptions. Great professional work. I'm sure there are not subconsious thought processes in making assumptions. /s

7) One faculty member complains that student feedback doesn't have any consequences for the students.

8) Apparently psychoanalysis has its own media. Are they really arguing about movies made by psychoanalysts, for psychoanalysts? These movies have to worse than student art films.

9) How many psychoanalysts can there really be? Are they really trying to keep people out? I get strict admissions criteria for the independent licensure as an analyst thing in NY, but for the rest of it......

I would almost be willing to pay you money to post this in the r/psychoanalysis sub. I occasionally peak over there just because the sheer amount of fart sniffing going on is astounding. It’s one of the two places I am not a member of yet regularly peak at for my daily dose of cringe. The amount of fart sniffing going on there is verging upon critical mass. It would be funny if not for being both sad and concerning. As a person focused on schizophrenia in my doctoral studies, I have seen some stuff about psychosis there which I would consider to be outright dangerous (instance that psychoanalysis is appropriate treatment for psychosis, inaccurate and untestable ideas about how psychosis arises from unconscious processes…)

 

[futureapppsy2]

1) The youngs seem to conflate Jewish with white. Jewish people were not considered “white” until relatively recently (e.g., closed/exclusive institutions, quotas in the Ivys, zoning laws in the NE, a ton of movies). This doesn't even matter,because NO ONE can effectively use the term "race" in this entire document.

A lot of non-Jews sincerely seem to think Judaism is a religion founded by rich white people in Europe in, like, the 1800s instead of being an ancient, tribal Levantine ethnoreligious group whose members have been perpetually seen as outsiders pretty much everywhere in the diaspora because of said ethnoreligion.

 

[PsyDr]

I would almost be willing to pay you money to post this in the r/psychoanalysis sub. I occasionally peak over there just because the sheer amount of fart sniffing going on is astounding. It’s one of the two places I am not a member of yet regularly peak at for my daily dose of cringe. The amount of fart sniffing going on there is verging upon critical mass. It would be funny if not for being both sad and concerning. As a person focused on schizophrenia in my doctoral studies, I have seen some stuff about psychosis there which I would consider to be outright dangerous (instance that psychoanalysis is appropriate treatment for psychosis, inaccurate and untestable ideas about how psychosis arises from unconscious processes…)

I like the function of psychoanalysis.... as a method of self improvement. It is helpful to know the processes of your mind (e.g., one subject is brought up every time you discuss a seemingly unrelated subject in your mind), and the idea of free association isn't that far off from normal "venting". Behaviorally, much of the process of psychoanalytic treatment makes sense. Harlow wrote about it, that green book from the 1950s wrote about it, Tsai has an entire career based upon the idea.... While it may be interesting to learn why a schizophrenic has that particular delusion, I doubt that knowledge would help him/her much.

The theories behind it... not so great.

Also: Freud committed suicide. I feel like that should be a pretty significant disclosure on every psychoanalytic book.

Since I'm ranting: The co-inventor of the self medication hypothesis, David Duncan, was convicted of trying to buy child pornography. Brown University continues to employ him.

A lot of non-Jews sincerely seem to think Judaism is a religion founded by rich white people in Europe in, like, the 1800s instead of being an ancient, tribal Levantine ethnoreligious group whose members have been perpetually seen as outsiders pretty much everywhere in the diaspora because of said ethnoreligion.

Yeah, this document is exceedingly ill informed about the genetics and history. I'm sure the Ashkenazi and Sephardic groups, would have liked to be considered "white" in more than a few circumstances. That distinction should at least be familiar to the physicians at the psychoanalytic institutes.

As to the history, I'd speculate that there are some NE tribes that participated in the French and Indian War that have similar opinions about the Germans as the Jews. Maybe even some of the Uyghurs could join in. Maybe some other groups have similar experiences.

And maybe someone should have told the authors, "Hey guys, I think you might not know that...."

 

[Dazen]

A lot of non-Jews sincerely seem to think Judaism is a religion founded by rich white people in Europe in, like, the 1800s instead of being an ancient, tribal Levantine ethnoreligious group whose members have been perpetually seen as outsiders pretty much everywhere in the diaspora because of said ethnoreligion.

+1

I also frequently have the conversation with people about how many Jewish people identify as "cultural but not religious" and how important cultural and linguistic aspects of Jewish tradition are because of its long history.

 

[futureapppsy2]

+1

I also frequently have the conversation with people about how many Jewish people identify as "cultural but not religious" and how important cultural and linguistic aspects of Jewish tradition are because of its long history.

I did my undergrad work at an indigenous/Native American-serving institution, and it really drove home to me how much Jews are a tribe/peoplehood with an attached closed ethnoreligion, rather than "just" a religious group. We celebrate festivals based on the Levantine harvest season to this day. We have holidays and rituals about our peoplehood and our history and our loss and our hope, and I've known plenty of atheistic and agnostic Jews who still found so much value and importance in that peoplehood and tradition, even though they didn't believe the religious aspects.