Decolonizing Psychoanalytic Technique

Both new and seasoned psychotherapists wrestle with the relationship between psychological distress and inequality across race, class, gender, and sexuality. How does one address this organically in psychotherapy? What role does it play in therapeutic action? Who brings it up, the therapist or the patient?

Daniel José Gaztambide addresses these questions by offering a rigorous decolonial approach that rethinks theory and technique from the ground up, providing an accessible, evidence-informed reintroduction to psychoanalytic practice. He re-examines foundational thinkers from three traditions—Freudian, relational-interpersonal, and Lacanian—through the lens of revolutionary psychiatrist Frantz Fanon, and offers a detailed analysis of Fanon’s psychoanalytic practice.

Drawing on rich yet grounded discussions of theory and research, Gaztambide presents a clinical model that facilitates exploration of the social in the clinical space in a manner intimately related to the patient’s presenting problem. In doing so, this book demonstrates that clinicians no longer have to choose between attending to the personal, interpersonal, or sociopolitical. It is a guide to therapeutic action “on the couch,” which envisions political action “off the couch” and in the streets. Decolonizing Psychoanalytic Technique provides a comprehensive, practice-oriented and compelling guide for students, practitioners, and scholars of critical, multicultural and decolonial approaches to psychotherapy.

“I highly recommend Daniel José Gaztambide’s Decolonizing Psychoanalytic Technique: Putting Freud on Fanon’s Couch to scholars, activists, and practitioners interested in learning about decolonial psychoanalysis through an impressively erudite and politically engaged overview of the critical contributions of Sigmund Freud, Sándor Ferenczi, Jacques Lacan, and Frantz Fanon. For Gaztambide, decolonial psychoanalysis is a theory, a clinical technique, and a form of political action. Gaztambide’s revolutionary intervention fills an important gap in analytic literature by focusing on decolonial psychoanalytic technique, accomplished through carefully unpacking clinical case studies from his practice and beyond. Gaztambide extracts what is radical in the theories and techniques of Freud, Ferenczi, and Lacan while leaving behind what is conservative. Furthermore, Gaztambide stretches psychoanalytic praxis through Fanon’s sociogenic methodology by highlighting the interconnectionsbetween psychoanalysis and the Black Radical Tradition as antifascist critiques of racial capitalism, particularly how fascists employ anti-Semitism and anti-Black racism in that system to divide and conquer the oppressed, whose distress manifests in a variety of symptoms.”

—Robert K. Beshara, Assistant Professor of Psychology & Humanities, Northern New Mexico College, author of Decolonial Psychoanalysis: Towards Critical Islamophobia Studies and Freud and Said: Contrapuntal Psychoanalysis as Liberation Praxis

“Daniel Gaztambide is one of our field’s foremost scholars of Frantz Fanon, ‘Freud’s most disputatious heir,” as Edward Said dubbed him. In this impressive volume Gaztambide traces the influence of Freud, Lacan, and Ferenczi on Fanon’s thinking and clinical practice, before turning a Fanonian lens back on these theorists in order to sketch what a “decolonial psychoanalysis” might look like. In a perhaps surprising move, Gaztambide engages motivational systems theory to provide an overarching scheme for bringing theory to a clinical approach that attends to matters of racial and other difference, no matter the identities of patient and therapist. What comes through most strongly from the book is Gaztambizde’s deep appreciation of Fanon as activist, theorist and (due to his early death) budding clinical practitioner.”

—Steve Botticelli, Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychology, NYU, co-editor of First Do No Harm: The Paradoxical Encounters of Psychoanalysis, Warmaking, and Resistance

“Many of us feel torn between psychotherapy and social action as responses to human suffering. Daniel Gaztambide, picking up where Fanon had to leave off, demonstrates with incisive clarity how psychological and social conditions each inform the other; he teaches us that work to repair our broken inner and outer worlds can and must coincide. With this book, to my mind, Gaztambide has broken through an impasse that has kept many of us psychotherapists feeling that we’ve left out half the job we would have liked to take on: to address the larger social world’s role in generating personal suffering.”

—Neil Altman, Faculty, Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis, author of The Analyst in the Inner City: Race, Class and Culture through a Psychoanalytic Lens, and White Privilege: Psychoanalytic Perspectives

“Is psychoanalysis trending in a moribund direction?  Or is there a germinating, radical spirit that is revivifying psychoanalysis?  In this life and death struggle, Daniel Gaztambide’s new book, Decolonizing Psychoanalytic Technique: Putting Freud on Fanon’s Couch, provides compelling arguments and support for thriving life.  This means decolonizing psychoanalysis, freeing it from its status as international, but parochial, and from its practices of serving white, dominant cultures at the expense of minoritized peoples. Freud’s self-analysis is terminated in order for him to spend some time on Fanon’s couch.  What is unique and brilliant about this book is that it connects the future of psychoanalysis to a psychoanalytic reading of its own history. There is much to be learned from this book: in highlighting Fanon but linking his theory and practice to relational psychoanalysis, Lacan, and even empirical research, Gaztambide makes a major contribution to the emergent radical spirit of psychoanalysis.”

—Elliot Jurist, Professor of Psychology and Philosophy at the Graduate Center and The City College of New York, CUNY, author of Minding Emotions: Cultivating Mentalization in Psychotherapy

“Decolonizing Psychoanalytic Technique is compelling and practical. Leveraging psychological theory, scientific insights, and practical experience, Gaztambide skillfully demonstrates how sociopolitical forces are intricately intertwined with the process of healing. This book is a gift to psychotherapists and an open call to embrace political action.”

—Hector Y. Adames, PsyD, Professor, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology; Co-Director, IC-RACE Lab (Immigration, Critical Race, And Cultural Equity)

“Gaztambide has produced an authorial, eminently readable, and fascinating account of the relationships between the contemporary psychoanalytic clinic and anti-coloniality. His book is a remarkable achievement which deserves to be read, enjoyed, and cited for years to come.”

—Sinan Richards, British Academy Research Fellow, King’s College London

“What would psychoanalysis look like if it assumed intrapsychic realities derive not only from our relationships but also the social and political conditions in which we exist? Drawing out the clinical implications of this vision, Gaztambide imagines such a psychoanalysis in thisbold and passionate book, demonstrating the clinical processes at work in a decolonial psychoanalysis construed as a preferential option for the marginalized.”

—Celia Brickman, Faculty, Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Therapy, author of Race in Psychoanalysis

“‘The couch is ours,’ asserts Gaztambide, a New York-based Puerto Rican psychoanalytic psychologist and poet who brings his imaginatively curated research to the ways in which anti-colonial struggle informed (consciously or not) the thinking of Freud, Ferenczi, Lacan and Fanon. The foundations of psychoanalysis ‘from below’ have been laid out, and we can now take on the vital task of building the decolonial practice of the future.”

—Elizabeth Danto, Professor of Social Welfare Emeritus, Hunter College-CUNY, author of Freud’s Free Clinics: Psychoanalysis and Social Justice, 1918-1938

“Take a wild Möbius-strip ride withthis bold, decolonial, Fanon-inspired reading of Freud, Ferenczi, and Lacan. Gaztambide’s fascinating book turns psychoanalysis inside out to unleash its emancipatory potential for today and the future.”

—Patricia Gherovici, author of The Puerto Rican Syndrome and Transgender Psychoanalysis

“This timely book explores the repressed provenance of race and otherness within the psychoanalytic canon. Gaztambide explores our current moment as the heirs of a long-standing remediation of the split between psyche and society by decolonizing psychoanalytic theory and practice. This book is an essential step in healing this divide as we maintain what is essential about psychoanalysis, while re-discovering what has been repressed to the detriment of our field and those we treat.”

—Dionne R. Powell, author of Race, African Americans, and Psychoanalysis: Collective Silence in the Therapeutic Situation (JAPA), Co-Chairof the Holmes Commission on Racial Equality in American Psychoanalysis.

“Gaztambide subjects Freud, Ferenczi, and Lacan to a decolonizing analysis guided by Fanon, narrating a personal trip demonstrating how white supremacy, anti-Blackness, and CISheteropatriarchy exercised violent control over psychoanalysis. This is done gracefully, resulting in a easy-to-read account welcoming readers with varying levels of knowledge, helping us untangle the complex weave of psyche-culture that undergird the work of psychotherapy.”

—Katie Gentile, Professor and Chair, Department of Interdisciplinary Studies, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, author and editor of The Business of Being Made: The temporalities of reproductive technologies, in psychoanalysis and culture

“This timely book provides a courageous lens to examine the crises in American psychoanalysis. Gaztambide’s goal of decolonizing psychoanalytic technique, and Iadd theory, is a formidable undertaking for which he does a commendable job, laying out the groundwork drawn out by the the Holmes Commission Final Report. This text is superbly written for graduate students, candidates and senior analysts to benefit from and I highly recommend it to all in our field.”

—Kirkland C. Vaughans, Adjunct Professor at the Derner School of Psychology, Member, Holmes Commission on Racial Equality in American Psychoanalysis, featured in Black Psychoanalysts Speak

“Gaztambide succeeds in what has never been done so adeptly before, a reconceptualization of psychotherapy through Fanon responsive to today’s world, a groundbreaking approach to ‘the intersectionality of suffering.’ There is now a definitive text to recommend to students and practitioners that covers a spectrum of psychoanalytic approaches to decolonization within one Fanon-centered volume. This is that volume.” 

—DerekHook, Associate Professor of Psychology, Duquesne University, author of A Critical Psychology of the Post-Colonial: The Mind of Apartheid and Six Moments in Lacan

“This is an extraordinary treatise. Gaztambide transforms what we knew of our forefathers by revealing, with bristling depth, the broken circuits where race, class and culture were lost. He not only develops a rich decolonial theory, but with brilliance guides us through its clinical application, navigating his own feelings and dilemmas with aplomb and sensitivity, a complex explication of intersectionality in action. It is as if we are witnessing an embodiment of Fanon in today’s world.”

—Melanie Suchet, Faculty, New York University’s Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, co-editor of Relational Psychoanalysis: Volume 3—New Voices

“Gaztambide traces contemporary research pointing to Fanon’s sociogenic visionbeyond internal or interpersonal dynamics, unfolding weblike networks of unconscious and social forces, continually interacting with embodiment and language. Here is a psychoanalysis that integrates the intersection of interpersonal affiliation and social hierarchies, but centers the role of race, class, culture, ethnicity and sexual orientation in human experience. A must read!”

—Steven Knoblauch, Adjunct Associate Professor at The New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, author of Bodies and Social Rhythms: Navigating Unconscious Vulnerability and Emotional Fluidity.

“In a powerful foundational text, Gaztambide takes up the ‘broken circuits’ left by our founding fathers by analyzing them from a Fanonian perspective. A response to his first book, A People’s History of Psychoanalysis, this volume is rich with accounts of what got lost along the way of developing technique when it comes to race, class, gender, and sexuality. A broad sociogenic assessment is necessary, not so much for our patients, but for ourselves collectively.”

—Rossanna Echegoyen, LCSW, Faculty, Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis

Daniel José Gaztambide, is Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology and Director of the Frantz Fanon Lab for Decolonial Psychology at Queens College-CUNY, USA. He is the author of A People’s History of Psychoanalysis: From Freud to Liberation Psychology (2019), and the recipient of a presidential citation from the American Psychological Association as part of the Presidential Taskforce on Strategies for the Elimination of Racism, Discrimination, and Hate. Gaztambide is the recipient of a Mellon Foundation Fellowship and a Miranda Family Fellowship to support his research and analytic training at the NYU Post-Doctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. He is a practitioner in private practice, and an active artist and member of the Puerto Rican poetry troupe, the Titere Poets.