title: "My sister tried to kill me": enactment and foreclosure in a mixed-race dyad.
abstract: How is treatment complicated when both patient and therapist bring into the room multiracial identities that stand in contrast to their visible race or ethnicity? Using relational psychoanalysis's concepts of dissociation, enactment, and relational trauma, this article examines the way multiple racial realities, beyond the more familiar black/white binary, can coexist in the consulting room. The implications and potential pitfalls of a cross-cultural dyad, in which each participant carries a mixed-race identity, are considered through a clinical vignette.
authors.affiliation: Clinical Social Worker, The Retreat at Sheppard Pratt; Private Practice, Washington, DC and Baltimore, MD.
authors.forename: Teresa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Méndez
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations; D011575:Psychoanalytic Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D000067073:Psychological Trauma / Q000628:therapy*; D044469:Racial Groups / Q000523:psychology*