Exploring the Dynamic Unconscious: Intersubjectivity and the Raced-Self in Vertically Infected HIV-Positive Adolescents

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/intecritdivestud.2.2.0055
• Published date: 01 December 2019
• Date: 01 December 2019
• Pages: 55-71
• Author: Ruby Patel,Tanya Graham
• Subject Matter: dynamic unconscious,Oedipus complex,raced-self,Fanon,intersubjectivity,vertical HIV-infection

International Journal of CRITICAL DIVERSITY STUDIES 2.2 December 2019

Exploring the Dynamic Unconscious

Intersubjectivity and the Raced-Self in Vertically

Infected HIV-Positive Adolescents

Ruby Patel

Psychology, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

Tanya Graham

Psychology, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

Ruby Patel is a counselling psychologist and Lecturer in the Department of

Psychology, School of Human and Community Development at the University

of Witwatersrand. She has extensive experience in psychological clinical practice

and is involved in the professional training and supervision of clinical assessment.

Her research interest lies in social asymmetries, activism and advocacy, applied

psychoanalytic theorising of socio-political issues, developmental challenges in

children and young adults who are HIV-positive. She is currently completing her

PhD in the Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy programme.

Tanya Graham is a counselling psychologist and an Associate Professor in the

Department of Psychology, School of Human and Community Development at

the University of the Witwatersrand. She is primarily involved in the professional

training of psychologists in community and therapeutic practice, and also lec-

tures in professional ethics, human rights and research methods. Her research

interests lie in the fields of community psychology, critical psychology and public

health theory, as well as the psychosocial support and advocacy needs of mar-

ginalised communities. She has published in the areas of community psychology

theory, practice, training and knowledge production; as well as the psychoso-

cial and developmental issues affecting children and youth in post-apartheid

South Africa. She is currently supervising several doctoral students in the PhD in

Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy programme.

ABSTRACT

This paper explores intrapsychic life as a site of socio-political insertion from

birth. The rst part of this paper engages with the psychoanalytic theory of

Melanie Klein on the notion of the dynamic unconscious and the Oedipal situa-

tion as key processes in the development of the self. The paper goes on to discuss

56 RUBY PATEL AND TANYA GRAHAM

International Journal of CRITICAL DIVERSITY STUDIES 2.2 December 2019

the critical contemporary position taken up by scholars who have highlighted the

racialisation of the Oedipus complex and its use in justifying racial hierarchies.

Furthermore, the paper engages with the unconscious as an intersubjective organ-

ising principle. Franz Fanon’s psychoanalytic framework, that deals with colonial

subjectivity, is reviewed here in order to explore how the raced-self becomes

imposed and internalised. The second part of the paper locates this theoretical

argument within the context of HIV. Intrapsychic development, which comes to

be located in our unconscious mind from birth, cannot be understood outside of

specic socio-political considerations. The unique developmental challenges of

HIV for those who are vertically infected cannot be taken for granted, and there

must be more deliberation on the ways in which intersubjective, politically aware

versions of psychoanalysis can be used to inform clinical knowledge and practice

in working with vertically infected HIV-positive adolescents in South Africa.

KEYWORDS

dynamic unconscious, Oedipus complex, raced-self, Fanon, intersubjectivity, verti-

cal HIV-infection

The history of South African psychoanalysis is often seen as tenacious by those who practise

from this tradition. However, South Africa’s colonial past and the subsequent horror of

apartheid has always had a distinct relationship with the psychoanalytic schools of thought

(Hayes, 2008; Knight, 2013; Sey, 1998). At best, this relationship is uneasy and unsettling, at

worst, its position is increasingly being seen by psychoanalytic practitioners as complicit in

inflicting more pain on the South African psyche through its exclusionary and restrictive

practices (Knight, 2013). Acknowledging the intrapsychic wounds inflicted by a traumatic

historical past of colonialism and apartheid opens up the potential from within psychoanaly-

sis of a possibility of reparation and healing. The continued recognition of the colonial

hegemony and forms of domination inherent in psychoanalytic-based knowledge and prac-

tice is particularly necessary within the South African context. One area where

psychoanalysis plays a significant role, but which is often overlooked, is in HIV research and

clinical practice (Hayes, 2008). Historically, HIV as a disease cannot be separated from the

socio-cultural and political context of its origin. MacGregor (2009, p. 92) argues that for

those who are HIV-positive, the “political overtakes and orientates the personal experience,

and can be understood as a developmental problem of poverty, a political problem of racism,

and a gender problem of sexual inequality”. Similarly, Richey (2008) describes the dynamics

of how HIV has been defined in South Africa within the socio-political context. The implica-

tion of this requires a consideration of the way in which intersubjective politically aware

versions of psychoanalysis can be explored within the context of HIV. This is done through

considering two key concepts within psychoanalysis: the dynamic unconscious and the Oedipus

complex. The discussion of these concepts is extended to intersubjectivity and the uncon-

scious before coming back to Franz Fanon’s pioneering contribution to psychoanalysis and

the raced subject as internal representations of racialised oppression. This is particularly

relevant when taking into account the historical past that becomes the reality for children