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Decolonizing Psychoanalytic Technique: Putting Freud on Fanon's Couch
Both new and seasoned psychotherapists wrestle with the relationship between psychological distress and inequality across race, class, gender, and sexuality. How does one address this organically in psychotherapy? What role does it play in therapeutic action? Who brings it up, the therapist or the patient?
Daniel José Gaztambide addresses these questions by offering a rigorous decolonial approach that rethinks theory and technique from the ground up, providing an accessible, evidence-informed reintroduction to psychoanalytic practice. He re-examines foundational thinkers from three traditions―Freudian, relational-interpersonal, and Lacanian―through the lens of revolutionary psychiatrist Frantz Fanon, and offers a detailed analysis of Fanon’s psychoanalytic practice. Drawing on rich yet grounded discussions of theory and research, Gaztambide presents a clinical model that facilitates exploration of the social in the clinical space in a manner intimately related to the patient’s presenting problem. In doing so, this book demonstrates that clinicians no longer have to choose between attending to the personal, interpersonal, or sociopolitical. It is a guide to therapeutic action “on the couch,” which envisions political action “off the couch” and in the streets. Decolonizing Psychoanalytic Technique provides a comprehensive, practice-oriented and compelling guide for students, practitioners, and scholars of critical, multicultural and decolonial approaches to psychotherapy.
Daniel José Gaztambide addresses these questions by offering a rigorous decolonial approach that rethinks theory and technique from the ground up, providing an accessible, evidence-informed reintroduction to psychoanalytic practice. He re-examines foundational thinkers from three traditions―Freudian, relational-interpersonal, and Lacanian―through the lens of revolutionary psychiatrist Frantz Fanon, and offers a detailed analysis of Fanon’s psychoanalytic practice. Drawing on rich yet grounded discussions of theory and research, Gaztambide presents a clinical model that facilitates exploration of the social in the clinical space in a manner intimately related to the patient’s presenting problem. In doing so, this book demonstrates that clinicians no longer have to choose between attending to the personal, interpersonal, or sociopolitical. It is a guide to therapeutic action “on the couch,” which envisions political action “off the couch” and in the streets. Decolonizing Psychoanalytic Technique provides a comprehensive, practice-oriented and compelling guide for students, practitioners, and scholars of critical, multicultural and decolonial approaches to psychotherapy.
- GenresNonfiction
348 pages, Paperback
Published May 1, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 17, 2024
I recently met with an old friend and practicing clinician. We discussed decolonial frameworks, and he laughed, “Don’t tell me you’re also on this trend?”
Neither Freud nor Fanon is unfamiliar with controversy. Their revolutionary ideas are born from the grueling violence of repressive racism, which threatens to extinguish them well past their death. Despite their influence, psychoanalysis as an institute, or rather white supremacy as the elephant in the room, is unable to contend with this reality.
Gaztambide brings a condensed understanding of the practitioners and case studies with racism on center stage. Written in plain English during a time of increasing racial unrest, the ideas of Freud, Ferenczi, Lacan, and Fanon presented and compared to contemporary examples provide an excellent introduction that may prove productive for clinicians, theorists and analysts.
Later, I attended a Zoom meeting with around 150 senior clinicians, who were discussing defensively against the absurdity of being forced to contend with ideas of critical theory. They wished to maintain the proper neutrality of psychoanalysis. Coffee without caffeine. Psychoanalysis without Freud. Colonialism without racism. Five stars for putting Freud on Fanon’s couch.
Neither Freud nor Fanon is unfamiliar with controversy. Their revolutionary ideas are born from the grueling violence of repressive racism, which threatens to extinguish them well past their death. Despite their influence, psychoanalysis as an institute, or rather white supremacy as the elephant in the room, is unable to contend with this reality.
Gaztambide brings a condensed understanding of the practitioners and case studies with racism on center stage. Written in plain English during a time of increasing racial unrest, the ideas of Freud, Ferenczi, Lacan, and Fanon presented and compared to contemporary examples provide an excellent introduction that may prove productive for clinicians, theorists and analysts.
Later, I attended a Zoom meeting with around 150 senior clinicians, who were discussing defensively against the absurdity of being forced to contend with ideas of critical theory. They wished to maintain the proper neutrality of psychoanalysis. Coffee without caffeine. Psychoanalysis without Freud. Colonialism without racism. Five stars for putting Freud on Fanon’s couch.
July 30, 2025
The title of this book undersells it. It is an exceptional critique and remix of the key broad schools of psychoanalytical theory AS WELL AS a refinement of the corresponding psychoanalytical technique inspired by them.
I truly think this is the best starting point for anyone wanting to learn about psychoanalysis that I’ve ever encountered- but I highly recommend it for those with substantial prior exposure to psychanalytical thought too!
From Gaztambide’s deep knowledge of 1) Fanon’s life and general theoretical outlook and 2) the psychoanalytic schools that influenced Fanon, he is able to deliver a presumptive approximation of Fanon’s personal synthesis- which Fanon did not himself provide before his tragic, early death.
My only critique is that when Gaztambide spoke about the importance of addressing social conditions, it was usually in hyper-palatable social democratic terms like the need for “redistribution” to address “inequality”, rather than reflecting Fanon’s more militant understanding and description of the revolutionary processes needed to overcome racial capitalism (eg, see Wretched of the Earth)- an equally if not more important contribution of Fanon, and one that Fanon himself prioritized formally elaborating over his personal synthesis of psychoanalytic theory.
In my opinion, it could be fruitful for the author (and academics generally) to analyze the omission or de-emphasis of this aspect of Fanon within academic decolonial theory generally- an activity this book helps prepare us to do effectively!
I truly think this is the best starting point for anyone wanting to learn about psychoanalysis that I’ve ever encountered- but I highly recommend it for those with substantial prior exposure to psychanalytical thought too!
From Gaztambide’s deep knowledge of 1) Fanon’s life and general theoretical outlook and 2) the psychoanalytic schools that influenced Fanon, he is able to deliver a presumptive approximation of Fanon’s personal synthesis- which Fanon did not himself provide before his tragic, early death.
My only critique is that when Gaztambide spoke about the importance of addressing social conditions, it was usually in hyper-palatable social democratic terms like the need for “redistribution” to address “inequality”, rather than reflecting Fanon’s more militant understanding and description of the revolutionary processes needed to overcome racial capitalism (eg, see Wretched of the Earth)- an equally if not more important contribution of Fanon, and one that Fanon himself prioritized formally elaborating over his personal synthesis of psychoanalytic theory.
In my opinion, it could be fruitful for the author (and academics generally) to analyze the omission or de-emphasis of this aspect of Fanon within academic decolonial theory generally- an activity this book helps prepare us to do effectively!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews