TY - JOUR A1 - Suchet, Melanie T1 - The Search for Objectivity in the Study of Subjectivity. Reply to Commentary JF - Psychoanalytic Dialogues, Vol. 14 (2004), pp. 453-456. N2 - In. Reply to Altman's discussion, the author explores in more depth the topic of whiteness, both her South African and American whiteness. She situates American whiteness in the history of slavery, Jim Crow, and the ongoing racial discrimination of the present. When Altman points to the author's unconscious submission to the regulatory power of the larger society, she postulates that her submission is to American whiteness. She notes that, in finding a new home, that which she wished to discard – a white racist identity synonymous with the oppressor – has reappeared, to be confronted once again. Y1 - 2004 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Suchet, Melanie T1 - The Role of Enactments JF - Psychoanalytic Dialogues, Vol. 14 (2004), pp. 423-438. N2 - Race remains one of the most highly charged subjects of discourse in our society. At a cultural level, white racial identity has become dissociatively split off from the rest of identity formation. A racialized subjectivity is usually carried by those with darker skin colors, whereas whiteness is experienced as an unmarked and invisible state. The author argues that whites have dissociated the historical position of the oppressor from collective consciousness, due to our inability to tolerate an identification with the aggressor. Our disavowal of race as constitutive of subjectivity ensures that race becomes a site for enactments. This paper follows the transference-countertransference dynamics between an African American patient mandated to treatment and the author, a white analyst born in South Africa. The haunting presence of racial trauma infused the analysis. Focus is placed on the rich, often unmetabolizable experiences of race, including the ways in which the structure of the treatment recreated the racial dynamics of slavery. Y1 - 2004 ER -