We invite submissions for the inaugural issue of Coloring Psychoanalysis to address the theme of A Place of Our Own, including but not limited to:

• Why do we need a space that centers BIPOC voices and experiences in psychoanalysis?

• What are your experiences as a student, clinician, teacher, and/or human being in psychoanalysis that bring you to Coloring Psychoanalysis?

• What have you sought but not found in psychoanalysis; what do you yearn for?

What we’re looking for

In general, our goal is to recognize - and seek to dismantle - the ways in which psychoanalytic theory has ignored and pathologized BIPOC people, justified and reinforced systemic oppression, and affects our practice and our communities today. We also want to highlight practices of resilience, joy, peace, wisdom, connection, and healing that have always been part of our and our ancestors' stories.

To kick off our periodical, we invite you to reflect on what draws you to a psychoanalytic space that is by and for BIPOC people. What inspires you about psychoanalysis as a BIPOC person, clinician, student, and/or teacher? What unique stories do you want to tell about yourself and your work in the psychoanalytic community? What do you yearn to experience but feel has been missing? What perspectives have you witnessed that have not been represented? What possibilities can you envision within such a space?

You may want to address the theme through your experiences of clinical work, supervision, the classroom, or personal narratives. Your content may take the form of writing, some of which may fit into a more traditionally academic approach, but you may also choose a host of other ways of writing about psychoanalysis, including but not limited to:

• personal essays;

• co-authored pieces;

• reviews and reflections on books, movies, songs, or other works;

• screen/stage-writing;

• fiction;

• poetry;

• works that incorporate multinational/multilingual perspectives.

You may also choose to express your ideas via other media, such as:

• music or song;

• performance;

• visual art;

• recorded conversation or interview.

In particular, we encourage works that center lived experiences, indigenous ways of knowing and healing, and/or the intersection of psychoanalysis and other areas of human inquiry.

If you choose to submit content in writing, we have a suggested length between 500-2000 words for ease of reading. If you’re submitting recorded content such as art or music, we ask that the file size is limited to 10MB.

A word on “psychoanalytic”...

We hold the term “psychoanalytic” (and the related “psychodynamic”) broadly to include myriad ways of working with individual and collective unconsciousness within the context of human relating. We believe that active dialogue and scrutiny around boundaries is essential to our mission, and is aligned with the spirit of the founding of this field. These ideas include those by early theorists such as Sigmund and Anna Freud, Carl Jung, John Winnicott, Melanie Klein, Sándor Ferenczi, etc. to more modern theories put forth by Jacques Lacan, Thomas Ogden, Frantz Fanon, Heinz Kohut, etc., and even more contemporary connections to the relational, intersubjective, sociocultural, and geopolitical such as those by David Eng & Shinhee Han, Neil Altman, Salman Akhtar, Pratyusha Tummala-Narra, Daniel José Gaztembide, and others. Again, we especially welcome contributions that center lived experiences and/or explore the intersections of psychoanalysis and other disciplines.

Our editorial process

We don’t follow traditional academic editorial processes, as these are often evaluative and oriented toward “objective” expertise and hierarchical gatekeeping. Instead, we believe that all contributors have valuable perspectives to offer our community, including those who are students and early career, so long as they’re in keeping with our publication’s core principles and community engagement guidelines (for more information, see About Us). Sometimes that means our content doesn’t conform to dominant ideas of what’s “worthy” of publication. In carrying out this belief, when you join our community as a contributor, we will engage you in a collaborative process around editing, support for the creative process, and additional guidance and mentoring with other community members as mutually desired.

Support via creative community

Want help to get inspired, hone your ideas, share resources, or keep you on track with your creative goals? You can join our monthly group! This is a communal and non-judgmental space where you can get support and feedback about your work (or thoughts!)-in-progress.

The support group is currently on hiatus while we work on the first issue, and will resume in early 2024. We’ll also be taking this time to reinvent this space with new and fun ideas; if you have any suggestions or would like to stay updated, please fill out the interest form or reach out to us.

How to submit

Submissions for the winter 2023 issue are now open! Click here to submit your contribution by October 15, 2023 (download the submission form as a PDF here). For written work, please make sure your submission is in Word or PDF format. For visual art or multimedia, you will be able to upload the file into the submission form (no more than 10MB in size).

For any questions about submissions, contact us at coloring.psychoanalysis@gmail.com.