by Luba Palter, MFT

I find myself once again unable to write. It feels frivolous and tone-deaf to discuss my reflections on the new Joan Didion book of her analysis or the latest Thomas Ogden book without addressing the politics of our country. I notice thinking that I am supposed to have something thoughtful and sensitive to say as the Editor-in-Chief of Impulse and a Board member of NCSPP. However, whatever sensitive and thoughtful thing I might say feels like virtue signaling and therefore insincere.

Because the truth is, I do not know how to process that the United States is becoming an authoritarian nation. I immigrated from Russia to the United States in 1992 as a child. Let me remind you of the totalitarian country I left behind. The government told its citizens what to think, where and how to work, how to proceed in daily life, and if somebody publicly disobeyed, they were arrested and often never seen again. Access to any information was under strict governmental control. During the August Coup in 1991, the government broadcasted Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake on television on loop for three days straight.

My childish fantasy of America was that anything was possible in the land of the free, that the streets were paved with gold, potato chips, and delicious, juicy Bubble Yum. When I arrived in the United States, I was placed in English as a Second Language classes (ESL) with other immigrants, where our stratifying soon emerged. Those who spoke English better were transferred to “regular classes” so that we could be less like immigrants or acceptable immigrants.

After I was advanced to “regular” classes, I rapidly established a goal to assimilate, to pass, to fit in, to lose my Russianness and, God-forbid, my accent. I made friends with native speakers. What I often saw and heard, even though my friends were born in this country, was that their experiences of feeling unsafe, not belonging, were profound. Their problem was that they were not White. The America I fantasized did not exist.

As I write this in May, public programming is under threat of getting defunded. Institutions are fighting constant assaults on their financial support unless they change their policies according to the ideologies of the current political regime. This is becoming eerily familiar…

Before the arrests, a client asked if I was worried that I might get deported. I told them no because I am White and a citizen. I wonder now, who was I reassuring? My client? Myself? Both of us? The choice to disclose can foreclose exploration, but to inquire about meaning can feel so removed from the dangers outside the consulting room. It can also run the risk of hiding behind the therapist’s façade. What is the role of a psychoanalytical therapist in the time of a national crisis? When the external world interferes with our abilities to think, feel, and engage freely, how do we proceed with our work? I invite your feedback and thoughts at lpalter@ncspp.org.