The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology will welcome Dr. Usha Tummala-Narra, an Associate Professor in the Department of Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology at Boston College and author of Psychoanalytic Theory and Cultural Competence in Psychotherapy, for the 12th annual Relational Perspectives Series on September 20 and 21.
The Relational Perspectives Series was founded by Dr. Roy Barsness in 2008 with the vision of creating an intimate, accessible environment to engage with relational and analytic theorists and clinicians who are contributing innovative, compelling work to the fields of psychology and psychotherapy.
The two-part event will focus on psychoanalytic perspectives on the roots of racism and xenophobia, and psychoanalytic understandings of sociocultural context in psychotherapy.
In her Friday evening public lecture at The Seattle School, on September 20, Dr. Usha Tummala-Narra will speak on Why the Hate?: Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Immigrants, Race, and Caste in Contemporary U.S. Recent policies in the U.S., such as those resulting in heightened policing of Black and Brown people and deportation of undocumented immigrants and separation of children from parents have made explicit the connection between racism and xenophobia. These policies and the broader xenophobic and racist sociopolitical climate in which they are implemented have important implications for intrapsychic life and interpersonal relationships. The Seattle School is proud to partner with the Northwest Alliance for Psychoanalytic Study to offer this public lecture as part of the Relational Perspectives Series. The Alliance is a non-profit interdisciplinary organization dedicated to making psychoanalytic knowledge available and useful to interested professionals and the larger community in the Pacific Northwest.
Dr. Usha Tummala-Narra will return on Saturday, September 21 for a workshop titled Culturally Informed Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. Saturday’s workshop will have a particular focus on indigenous narrative and the complexity of cultural identity formation within the context of choice and constraint. This workshop is reserved for Seattle School alumni and current students. The general public is warmly invited to learn with us as we hear from Dr. Tummala-Narra at the public lecture on Friday, September 20, 7:30-9:00pm.