Psychoanalysis and Colonialism: A Contemporary Introduction

In this book review, I explore Sally Swartz's contribution to the Routledge Introductions to Contemporary Psychoanalysis series on the topic of psychoanalysis and colonialism. I outline my original interest in this topic and how encountering Swartz's book has been both an enlightening and surprising experience regarding the latent biases within psychoanalytic theory and practice. I review some of the main themes and strengths of the book while also outlining a gap that could have been addressed with a more lengthy engagement with this topic. Fundamentally, Swartz's book is both a historical enquiry into the background of psychoanalysis and a call to action within the contemporary perimeters of psychoanalytic practice. In this important contribution to balancing the hierarchies of inequality and unilateral expression within psychoanalytic spaces, I argue that Swartz's book is critically important reading but also must be set within the context of the broader Lacanian scholarly field of psychoanalysis and colonialism.