Racial Legacies: Jung, Politics and Culture

147 Pages·2022·5.268 MB·English

by  Fanny Brewster, Helen Morgan

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‘Brewster and Morgan dare to enter this powerful conversation in
exploring the assumptions and challenges about race. Dialoguing from
within their own cultural, social-p olitical context exploring European
and African diaspora histories as Jungian analysts, they consider the
intergenerational context and its relevance for us today. In this important
text they create a rich psychological space in which to meet, reflect and
share experiences finding a soulful meeting place. This important dis-
cussion invites us to re-t hink and critically interrogate our shared his-
tories, collective memories, psychic disenfranchisement, through radical
honesty and to encounter each other through opening dialogue.’
Anthea Benjamin, Psychotherapist, Supervisor and
Group Analyst UKCP & BACP registered
‘This is a brilliant and creative piece of work that examines raciality from
an Africanist and White perspective. It is also an act of empowerment
and response to Jung excising the black experience. A self- identified
Africanist, Fanny Brewster, PhD centers Africanist traditions and the
healing arts in the treatment room. She takes us on a journey of mapping
out her ancestral origins with imaginings of her ancestor standing on a
pier. Her poem to her ancestor took my breath away. We are reminded
that we are not outside of history as we live these horrors today. This is
a valuable model of how to weave cultural Africanist traditions, spiritu-
ality and history in an analytic psychological treatment.’
Rossanna Echegoyén, LCSW, Founder and Co- Chair of
the Committee for Race and Ethnicity at the
Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis
‘Racial Legacies is the poetic and scholarly outcome of a deep, cour-
ageous, transatlantic engagement with racial complex by Fanny
Brewster and Helen Morgan. This is an essential book for 21st century
Jungians, with two distinct voices to guide engagement with systems
of racism and white privilege and their implications for the theory and
practice of Analytical Psychology.’
Jane Johnson, Senior member British Psychotherapy
Foundation and British Jungian Analytic Association
‘In this unique work, Brewster and Morgan collaborate to intertwine
their voices and stories – reaching across the Atlantic bringing the
different UK and US cultures into the mix – in the service of exploring
our relationships to race. Brewster and Morgan take the field to the
cutting edge of where and how analysts need to be addressing race
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head on in the era following the murder of George Floyd. Their dia-
logue models respectful interaction while confronting history, theory
and politics head on. They rightly alert us: “In our contemporary prac-
tice of psychology we must be aware of the racialized foundations of
Modern Psychology.” Brewster alerts us: “The voice of members of the
African Diaspora when expressed says that the whiteness of psycho-
analysis does not see them, cannot see them and include their cultural
identity of blackness.” If Jungian analysis is to dig itself out of its at
times racist silo, it needs to pay attention to this book. The authors
challenge us to have “sufficient confidence in the robustness of the core
principles of psychoanalytic and Jungian analytic theory to trust that
they can withstand some rattling.” The book ends by turning back on
itself to provide a meta view of the writing and process of managing
the intrinsic challenges of co- writing from both a black and a white per-
spective which is profoundly honest, transparent and moving. A model
for us all.’
Ruth Williams, Jungian Training and Supervising Analyst (AJA).
Author of Jung: The Basics (Routledge 2019)
‘Jungian Analysts Fanny Brewster, an African American Black and
Helen Morgan, a Caucasian from England joined in a courageous
endeavor to explore the complexities of racism, politics, culture and
psychology. Through their trust, mistrust, struggles and openness they
display a willingness and vulnerability to hold different perspectives
while continuing to talk. This book is a recommended read for those
who are interested in understanding how to hold different perspectives
while engaging in heartfelt conversations around difficult subject matter.
The authors open conversations provide a psychological model that can
improve racial relationships and help create a future just society.’
Jane Selinske,Ed.D., LCSW, NCPsyA, President
C. G. Jung Foundation for Analytic Psychology, NY
‘I find myself between loud applause and profound sadness and tears
as I finish reading Racial Legacies: Jung, Politics and Culture. I am in
tears of white guilt, of compassion for the years and years of personal
and political struggle on the part of black people. Fanny Brewster and
Helen Morgan clarify a picture of how hard it is to address systemic
racism without an empathic understanding of the centuries of greed,
torture, white power and unconsciousness suffered by Africanist people,
particularly in the south of the United States. In her book, Caste,
Isabel Wilkerson talks of class consciousness as “the worn grooves of
comforting routines and unthinking expectations, patterns of a social
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order that have been in place for so long that (they) look like the nat-
ural order of things.” It is this cruel complacency that Jungian psych-
ology has the potential to expose by helping to make clear the power of
unconscious archetypes, such as equating whiteness with goodness and
righteousness, blackness with evil and badness. How long must we wait?’
Elizabeth Stevenson, M.Div. Jungian Psychoanalyst
‘Every few years, a book comes along that revitalizes, restores, renews
our faith in womankind, taking us by the hand, leading us into the dream
world of our collective past from which we emerge more wholly our-
selves – which is, Racial Legacies: Jung, Politics and Culture. Generous,
precise and unsentimental, Fanny Brewster and Helen Morgan offer
a brilliant collaboration that achieves this and more. Brewster and
Morgan have created a deeply personal and moving book, perfectly
suited for the times we are living, the authors compare their own ethnic
backgrounds with others to create a “sharing space” of enlightenment
... A thought- provoking must read book.’
Dianne Travis- Teague, Director, Alumni Relations,
Pacifica Graduate Institute
‘What a wonderful idea to bring disparate voices together to explore
how each approaches the history and experience of cultural differences
within the field of psychoanalysis. Racial Legacies: Jung, Politics and
Culture by Fanny Brewster and Helen Morgan provides a thoughtful,
fresh discussion of the presence of the Other both within and outside of
the consulting room. Recounting their individual experiences of their
own races in childhood, Brewster and Morgan go on to examine and
compare their first notable encounters with others from different ethnic
and cultural backgrounds and share their “wonderment and concern”
for race in analytic relationships.’
Beth Boardman, RN, MA, PhD, Lecturer, Mythologist,
Author, Chair, PGIAA Advisory Board
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Racial Legacies
This essential new book presents a discussion of racial relations, Jungian
psychology and politics as a dialogue between two Jungian analysts of
different nationalities and ethnicities, providing insight into a previously
unexplored area of Jungian psychology.
Racial Legacies explores themes and historical events from the per-
spective of each author, and through the lens of psychology, politics
and race, in the hopes of creating meaningful racial relationships. The
historical ways the past has affected the authors’ ancestors and their
own lives today is explored in detail through essays and dialogue, dem-
onstrating that past racial legacies continue to bind on both conscious
and unconscious levels.
This book distinguishes itself from other texts as the first of its kind
to present a racial dialogue in the context of Jungian psychology. It will
be of great value to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and students of
Depth and Analytical Psychology.
Fanny Brewster, Ph.D., M.F.A., is a Jungian analyst and Professor of
Depth Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute, USA.
Helen Morgan is a Fellow of the British Psychotherapy Foundation and
is a training analyst and supervisor for the Jungian Analytic Association
within the BPF.
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Routledge Focus on Jung, Politics and Culture
The Jung, Politics and Culture series showcases the ‘political turn’ in
Jungian and Post- Jungian psychology. Established and emerging
authors offer unique perspectives and new insights as they explore the
connections between Jungian psychology and key topics – including
national and international politics, gender, race and human rights.
For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com/
Focus- on- Jung- Politics- and- Culture/ book- series/ FJPC
Titles in the series:
Torture Survivors in Analytic Therapy: Jung, Politics and Culture
Monica Luci
Racial Legacies: Jung, Politics and Culture
Fanny Brewster and Helen Morgan
From Vision to Folly in the American Soul: Jung, Politics and Culture
Thomas Singer
Vision, Reality and Complex: Jung, Politics and Culture
Thomas Singer
Anti- Semitism and Analytical Psychology: Jung, Politics and Culture
Daniel Burston
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Racial Legacies
Jung, Politics and Culture
Fanny Brewster and Helen Morgan
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First published 2022
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 Fanny Brewster and Helen Morgan
The right of Fanny Brewster and Helen Morgan to be identified as authors
of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without
intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing- in- Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Brewster, Fanny, author. | Morgan, Helen (Psychoanalyst), author.
Title: Racial legacies: Jung, politics and culture /
Fanny Brewster and Helen Morgan.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2022. |
Series: Focus on Jung, politics and culture |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2021047564 | ISBN 9780367458409 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781032221496 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003025689 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Race relations–Psychological aspects. | Jungian psychology.
Classification: LCC HT1523 .B74 2022 |
DDC 305.8001/9–dc23/eng/20211119
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021047564
ISBN: 978- 0- 367- 45840- 9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978- 1- 032- 22149- 6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978- 1- 003- 02568- 9 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/ 9781003025689
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Newgen Publishing UK
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Dedicated to the Ancestors who gave us life