Fridays @ CCP Lecture Series
Kirkland Vaughans, PhD
(New York, NY)
The Cultural Inhibitions to “Dig” on Black Boys ‘La Winnicott in Psychotherapy'
Friday June 4, 2027
7-9pm (CST)
1132 S. Wabash Ave., Suite 502, Chicago
& ZOOM
About the presentation: While it is abundantly clear that children and families of Hispanic origin are experiencing an overwhelming assault on their basic sense security and liberties in this nation, there seems to be little or no questioning as to how Black children in particular are experiencing what some consider to be a repudiation of the Civil Rights Movement. There are physical attacks against Asians and Anti-Semitic attacks against Jewish people, causing one to pause and label this era, as highly racially and religiously polarized. My specific focus is on Black boys and how cultural and historical racial attitudes have become so embedded within our thought pattern as to make them, non-thoughts, but more of a way of seeing and understanding the world. Hence, our responsibility as psychoanalytic clinicians to examine their influence on us, our profession, and most definitely on our treatment.
Kirkland Vaughans, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst. A Fellow-training and supervising analyst-on the faculty of IPTAR, he is also faculty and founder of the Adelphi Derner/ Hempstead Child Clinic and Supervisor in the Child & Adolescent Program of the Derner Postgraduate Program and faculty at NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy & Psychoanalysis and the Stephen Mitchell Relational Study Center. He is also the Honorary Institute Dean of the Harlem Family Institute. He is Founding Editor of the Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy and the co-editor of the two-volume Psychology of Black Boys and Adolescents. He has presented at over 125 conferences and panel discussions on issues pertaining to white racism, generational trauma among African Americans, and the school-to-prison pipeline for boys and girls of Color, and is a subject of the documentary, Your Mum and Dad. He Is a founding member of Black Psychoanalysts Speak and was a member of the Holmes Commission. In addition, he is a recipient of the 2024 Founder Award of SPPP. (Div. 39) APA.
Learning Objectives
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Participants will recognize how Black children are culturally portrayed as lacking innocence as opposed to White children
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Participants will recognize how for Black youth this perceived lack of innocence distorts the function of therapeutic empathy.
This is a Beginers Level Presentation
Fees
CCP members: free with annual $195 membership, payable at registration.
Students:free with annual $175 membership, payable at registration.
New Fellows / Ongoing: free with annual $250/$300 membership, payable at registration.
Non-CCP members, single admission: $50
Continuing Education
This program is sponsored for Continuing Education Credits by the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis. There is no commercial support for this program, nor are there any relationships between the continuing education sponsor, presenting organization, presenter, program content, research, grants or other funding that could be construed as conflicts of interest. Participants are asked to be aware of the need for privacy and confidentiality throughout the program. If the program content becomes stressful, participants are encouraged to process these feelings during discussion periods. The Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis maintains responsibility for this program and its content. CCP is licensed by the state of Illinois to sponsor continuing education credits for Licensed Clinical Social Workers, Licensed Social Workers, Licensed Clinical Professional Counselors, Licensed Professional Counselors, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapy Counselors and Licensed Clinical Psychologists (license no. 159.000941 and 268.000020 and 168.000238 Illinois Dept. of Financial and Professional Regulation).
Professionals holding the aforementioned credentials will receive 2.0 continuing education credits for attending the entire program. To receive these credits a completed evaluation form must be turned in at the end of the presentation and licensed psychologists must first complete a brief exam on the subject matter. No continuing education credit will be given for attending part of the presentation. Refunds for CE credit after the program begins will not be honored. If a participant has special needs or concerns about the program, s/he/they should contact Toula Kourliouros Kalven by June 3, 2027 at: tkalven@ccpsa.org
References/Suggested Readings
Cushman, D,.(2025) Who gets to be a child? Clinical and cultural reflections on racism, White infantilization, and Kyle Rittenhouse .Psychoanalytic Dialogues. 35(4), 478-499.
Davids, M,F. (2020) Psychoanalysis and black lives. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 101(5), 1039-1047.
Schwebach, E. (2023) Racism, activity, and passivity in the analytic dyad: A Favonian mediation. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 70(4), 619-639.
Vaughans, K.C. (2021) Black boys in the eye of the storm. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 7(1), 47-58.
Vaughans, K.C. & Harris, L. (2016) The police, Black and Hispanic boys: A dangerous inability to mentalize. Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy, 15(3), 171-178.
Presented by
The Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis/CCP Program Committee