Mourning the Loss of Cultural Selfobjects: Black Embodiment and Religious Experience after Trauma

Psychoanalytic self psychology is appropriated to examine the impact of embodied trauma for the development of the self and the capacity for religious and cultural affiliation. The impact of negative cultural reflections of blackness must be acknowledged as having a psychological and social impact. Specifically explored is the unconscious identification with and disavowal of negative images of self as black, and the loss of the culture's place in providing needed mirroring and idealization experiences. This loss is magnified when trauma is a feature. The de-idealization and loss of cultural selfobjects creates the need to engage a process of mourning. Overcoming resistance to mourning the loss of culture as a site for the gratification of selfobject needs is central to making a link between the individual and the social. Finally, the implications for practical theology and practice are considered.