We members of the Bay Area Psychoanalytic Community, Analytic Psychologists, Psychoanalysts and Psychodynamic Psychotherapists, come together during this time of collective trauma. We are saddened and sickened by the repeated incidents of systemic brutality, including police brutality, that have led to countless incidents of dehumanizing violence and murder of African Americans. We acknowledge that this follows centuries of institutionalized racism towards non-white people—racism that causes grave harm to individuals, and by extension, to society as a whole. This racism is ingrained in the social and political fabric of our country, including the mental health sector of which our organizations are a part.
We are immersed in the dual pandemics of COVID-19 and pervasive racism. We find ourselves face-to-face with the opportunity to confront the ways in which, institutionally, we have been complicit in perpetuating systemic racism. Going forward, the undersigned mental health organizations together commit to holding ourselves and one another accountable for deeply and actively engaging in personal and group work towards identifying and dismantling the sources of institutional racism within our training and administrative structures. Together, over the coming months and years, we commit to inter-organizational collaboration towards collective change of institutional culture, including shared educational programs and public policy advocacy.
We recognize that this statement is only a first step. We are committed to interrogating our part in long-term systemic racism and in moving forward to make real and substantial changes together towards progress and equality.
With grief and with hope we learn to walk in solidarity with Black Lives Matter.