Interpretation as Hypothesis.

Two distinct spaces can be seen as operating in a session-a private one in the analyst's mind, where formulations take shape, and one shared between patient and analyst, in which interpretations are offered. By maintaining a focus on the here and now in the latter space, taking care to protect it from intrusions from the analyst's theory except as hypotheses (in the form of interpretations derived from those formulations) aimed at eliciting unconscious responses that further the analytic inquiry, a basis for analytic work is established that aligns with ordinary scientific processes: theory is generated in the mind of the researcher, and hypotheses derived from it are tested systematically in a laboratory setting. Self-understanding that develops out of such an arrangement can then be seen as based on evidence, minimizing the role of suggestion. This line of thinking is illustrated with excerpts from the beginning of the analysis of a depressed patient. In developing areas of theory, when reliable evidence is particularly important, this way of working holds promise. In this case evidence was systematically gathered that led to the formulation of a model of internal racism.

Race and Analytic Neutrality: Clinical and Theoretical Considerations.

Neutrality remains a key concept underpinning the psychoanalytic attitude, but its operation in the clinical setting must be reconfigured if the countertransference is to be used as a source of data, conveyed by projective identification. Subjective responses thus mobilized in the analyst need to be processed before attention can return to the evenly suspended state, from which greater objectivity flows. Theory, internalized as part of the analyst's emotional learning, operates preconsciously in the session; in clinical work with racial matters this includes, crucially, familiarity with internal racism, of which a model is briefly described. These ideas are illustrated via two clinical vignettes in which these themes are traced.

Psychoanalysis and black lives.

This paper suggests that being black in a white majority world attracts powerful racist projections whose cumulative effect can be deeply traumatising, a problem that has not received due attention in mainstream psychoanalysis. This theme is developed through a description of how this difficulty, and the patient's inner response to it, came to light at the beginning of an analysis. The patient, who grew up as the only brown-skinned child in his white family and community, and without a father, suffered from a lifelong preoccupation with men's genitals. On the couch he experienced extreme bodily discomfort that he sought to relieve through violent sexual thrusting; the paper describes how the stance of negative capability was employed to investigate the dynamics underpinning this. This brought to light the patient's experience of racist projection and intolerance on the part of his objects, as well as his identification with them. The importance of recognising and naming these experiences, gradually and as evidence permits, are seen as central in engaging him. The paper ends by discussing how the analyst's blackness may have facilitated this development, and underlines the urgency of addressing the neglect of these matters in the mainstream of our largely white profession.

The impact of Islamophobia.

Muslims, as members of minority communities in the West, grow up against a background of everyday Islamophobia. I suggest that the Muslim self internalized in such a setting is denigrated (Fanon 1952), a problem usually grappled with during adolescence when identity formation is the key developmental task. This typically involves the adolescent taking on polarized positions and embracing extreme causes. Following the 9/11 and 7/7 attacks Islamophobia intensified, which can be understood, at the psychological level, as an internal racist defence against overwhelming anxiety. Within that defensive organization, which I describe, fundamentalism is inscribed as the problematic heart of Islam, complicating the adolescent's attempt to come to terms with the inner legacy of everyday Islamophobia. I explore these themes through a case study of a young man who travelled to Afghanistan in the 1990s, and by brief reference to Ed Husain's "The Islamist" and Mohsin Hamid's novel "The Reluctant Fundamentalist".