“ It changed my analysis, I went from ‘I’m not actually a patient, I’m just a lump here’ to being a patient. I didn’t understand the work until after that conference at the Tavistock. It’s like I could take advantage of the opportunity I was having to move the analysis along… My analyst wrote a paper with two other analysts about their experience of working in analysis with three women of color during the Martin Luther King Funeral.”
Kathleen Pogue White Ph.D.
New York
Episode Description:
Dr. Steven Rolfe welcomes Dr. Kathleen Pogue White. She is the Principal of Pogue White Consultancy, LLC. Kathy is a psychoanalyst who applies her core psychoanalytic knowledge and skills to her work in organizational consulting, executive coaching, and leadership development.. Dr. White’s consulting career has focused on executive coaching, particularly executive role transitions in numerous organizations. In this conversation, Dr. White discusses her consulting work in organizations with a particular focus on her paper describing how she worked with a patient/client in psychoanalysis and in a consulting engagement.
Key Takeaways:
[4:54] Dr. White talks about how she became interested in psychoanalysis.
[8:58] Dr. White’s introduction to psychoanalysis was going into treatment.
[9:54] Psychoanalysis as cocoon.
[10:30] Dr. White shares how she wrote the paper Applying Learning from Experience.
[14:44] The question: “Who do you think you are?” led Dr. White to a major realization on how much privilege she actually had.
[20:03] Dr. White realized she was not making a particular contribution, but just going along with the
flow.
[20:45] Realizing she was a natural for consultation work.
[23:47] Changing from an analytic to a consulting frame and then back to an analytic one.
[27:18] When an analyst sees people at work, a lot more is revealed in comparison to what can be seen on the couch.
[30:02] Dr. White talks about her work Surviving Hating and Being Hated.
[30:58] Dr. White talks about the Black Panthers movement.
[32:56] There is a tendency to support the white status quo.
[35:18] Dr. White talks about her current work in the area of diversity and race.
[38:55] Dr. White engages in conversations with people running organizations, helping them understand social accountability.
[39:20] Dr. White shares her thoughts about the specific contribution of psychoanalysis to the
problem of racism in organizations.
Mentioned in This Episode
IPA Off the Couch – www.ipaoffthecouch.org
Recommended Readings
Goldberg et al(1974) “Some Observations on Three Interracial Analyses”. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 55:495-500
White, K.P. (2002). “Surviving Hating and Being Hated”: Some Personal Thoughts About Racism from a Psychoanalytic Perspective. Contemp. Psychoanal., 38(3):401-422.
White, K. P. (1997) “Applying Learning from Experience”: The Intersection of Psychoanalysis and Organizational Role Consultation, Gould, LJ, Stapley, LF and Stein, M. (Eds). The Sytems-Psychodynamics of Organizations: Integrating the Group Relations Approach, Psychoanalytic, and Open Systems Perspectives. London: Karnac.
Winograd, B. (2014). Black Psychoanalysts Speak. PEP Video Grants, 1(1):1