ABOUT MIP

Diversity at MIP

Race, Gender, Ethnicity, and Comparative Psychoanalysis

MIP is committed to understanding the role of race, gender, and religion, as well as cultural bias and oppression in our world and our institution.

From the beginning, as a comparative institute, MIP has included required courses on Culture and Psychoanalysis as well as Gender and Sexuality in its four-year training program. Committed to the alleviation of human suffering, we work towards an understanding of our patients and ourselves in human, cultural, social, and historical contexts.

Critical to discourse in this arena, we strive to establish a spirit of questioning, inquiry, and free exchange of views in all of our programs. As a psychoanalytic educational institution, we are dedicated to the ongoing creative development of the larger field of psychoanalysis. Such change includes, in part, diverse contemporary perspectives on race, gender, religion, and ethnicity as they relate to our identity as a comparative psychoanalytic institute. We are also invested in promoting the broader, international world of psychoanalytic publications, conferences, and online communication around analytic theory, education, training, and practice. Currently, we have asked the faculty to consider including readings on race and culture as well as writings by Black psychoanalysts. Additionally, our continuing education programs offer courses on race and psychoanalysis.

In June 2020, we committed to working toward antiracism and racial equality at MIP. We want to understand the barriers to becoming a more racially and culturally diverse program and strive toward becoming a welcoming community for everyone. This is an ongoing commitment, one that we continue to discuss and keep forefront of our work together.

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Commitments to Antiracism & Racial Equity

  • Commitment #1

    We will offer free tuition for applicants who identify as people of color and who are accepted into our psychoanalytic training program and will expand scholarships for underrepresented communities in our fellowships. We are aware that the field of psychoanalysis is predominately white and as an education and training institute we have a unique responsibility and opportunity to amplify the voices of underrepresented populations in the psychoanalytic community. We believe that a vigorous welcoming of analytic candidates of color can challenge, change, and improve our Institute and, ultimately, the field of psychoanalysis.

  • Commitment #2

    We will integrate a race perspective into our curricula, across the full spectrum of our programs, beginning with the inclusion of readings by authors of color and others who explicitly address race or racism in relevant ways. Understanding the cultural and intellectual context of the theorists will enhance our understanding of their theories. We will offer supports and trainings to our faculty in aid of this change, to encourage a growth mindset as we walk this path together.

  • Commitment #3

    We will assemble a task force to examine the internal barriers to full representation by communities of color in MIP’s membership and programs. We recognize that there are likely aspects of our organization that are, at least implicitly, uninviting to people of color. We will work to understand and embody what it means to be an antiracist organization, will learn and listen, and in that way move toward creating a community that perpetuates antiracism. We will learn and grow together with compassion and determination.

  • Commitment #4

    We will amplify the voices of psychoanalysts, and psychoanalytically oriented clinicians and thinkers, of color. We will continue to invite prominent psychoanalytic thinkers and theorists from underrepresented communities, specifically those of color, to present and dialogue at MIP, while increasing our outreach to psychoanalysts and psychotherapists of color who may wish to join us at MIP. We will actively promote and support forums for discussion between members, candidates, and fellows within the MIP community, and with other organizations, around obstacles to progress concerning issues of race and racism.

read the press release

MIP Antiracism and Racial Equity Resources

The following list of readings, podcasts, shows, and other opportunities is available in service of stimulating critical dialogue about race and power. If there are resources that you want to add to this list, please send all details by contacting us.

Articles and Books

Videos, Movies, & TV

Podcasts