Racism, Activity, and Passivity in the Analytic Dyad: A Fanonian Meditation

Frantz Fanon's reception within psychoanalysis has been hindered by an interpretive "snag" that vexes discussions of his work and relevance. This "snag" misleadingly situates Fanon's clinical approach as necessarily outside, or antithetical to, treatment as conceived and practiced in the Freudian tradition. As a result, analytic educators, students, and therapists are prone to position Fanon on one side of a conceptual boundary and "analytic neutrality" on the other. This reading is not only misguided but detrimental to the healing potential and continued development of psychoanalysis. A closer look at one of Fanon's oft-repeated rallying cries, in which its context is examined and its intent unpacked, allows for a disambiguating of "analytic neutrality" and affords a number of takeaways that can help readers recognize the stakes of Fanon's contributions to psychoanalysis and appreciate their pertinence for dyadic clinical treatment. A major implication is the importance for psychoanalysis, in both pedagogy and clinical practice, to take coloniality (the continued legacies of colonial domination, including especially white supremacy) far more seriously.