‘The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind’

A few weeks ago, someone sent me a recording of a talk called “The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind.” It was delivered at the Yale School of Medicine’s Child Study Center by a New York-based psychiatrist as part of Grand Rounds, an ongoing program in which clinicians and others in the field lecture students and faculty. 

When I listened to the talk I considered the fact that it might be some sort of elaborate prank. But looking at the doctor’s social media, it seems completely genuine.

Here are some of the quotes from the lecture:

• This is the cost of talking to white people at all. The cost of your own life, as they suck you dry. There are no good apples out there. White people make my blood boil. (Time stamp: 6:45)

• I had fantasies of unloading a revolver into the head of any white person that got in my way, burying their body, and wiping my bloody hands as I walked away relatively guiltless with a bounce in my step. Like I did the world a fucking favor.  (Time stamp: 7:17)

• White people are out of their minds and they have been for a long time.  (Time stamp: 17:06)

• We are now in a psychological predicament, because white people feel that we are bullying them when we bring up race. They feel that we should be thanking them for all that they have done for us. They are confused, and so are we. We keep forgetting that directly talking about race is a waste of our breath. We are asking a demented, violent predator who thinks that they are a saint or a superhero, to accept responsibility. It ain’t gonna happen. They have five holes in their brain. It’s like banging your head against a brick wall. It’s just like sort of not a good idea. (Time stamp 17:13)

• We need to remember that directly talking about race to white people is useless, because they are at the wrong level of conversation. Addressing racism assumes that white people can see and process what we are talking about. They can’t. That’s why they sound demented. They don’t even know they have a mask on. White people think it’s their actual face. We need to get to know the mask. (Time stamp 17:54)

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Katie Herzog, who wrote yesterday about the spread of wokeness in medicine, interviewed the psychiatrist who delivered the talk, Dr. Aruna Khilanani. 

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KH: Your bio online says you are a “Forensic Psychiatrist and Psychoanalyst, with expertise in violence, racism, and marginalized identities. I left academic institutions because of institutional racism. Word.” Tell me about that. What happened? 

AK: I trained at Cornell and Columbia and NYU and I really experienced all aspects of Cornell and Columbia as very racist. Less so NYU. NYU I found to be a lot more open. Cornell, I think we had one black faculty member. When I was at Columbia we had, I think, one black psychoanalyst. And just the way of thinking was all the same.

Do you have examples of what you experienced?

Sure. When I was at Cornell, I got beat up by a patient’s family member. I have a friend who is blonde and when she got threatened [by a patient] I think they did a Grand Rounds or a talk or some kind of symposium. They really addressed it. She was given a lot of support. And I’m not even sure if she was actually hit or not.

Now, when that happened to me, and I actually got beat up, the way they responded was, “Well what do you think you did to elicit this?” That’s the question I got. Like I must have done something to provoke the attack.

Did you file a complaint?

No, because the more that you push back, the more they are going to keep attacking you. Also, in my first year, along with another person of color, I had the most Saturday call. These things are not incidental. There was a meeting where they actually tried to take away my vacation from me.

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{snip} I have a question for you.

Sure. 

Is what you’re writing going to be from a conservative perspective?

Well, I’m not conservative so, no.   

I ask because I actually think that conservatives are psychologically healthier.

Interesting. 

They are more in touch with their anger and negative feelings. They can articulate it. They can say it, they’re not covering it up or like “Oh my god, I’m amazing, I love all people.” There’s not all this liberal fluff of goodness. Conservatives can go there. They can say things that are uncomfortable that I think liberals would shirk at or move away from or deny.

I would feel more comfortable hanging out with Ann Coulter than a lot of liberals because she’s unlikely to do anything. She’s in contact with her anger and her hatred, and I think that needs to be worked through, don’t get me wrong, for the country to heal, but she’s actually in contact with those feelings that a lot of people can’t say out loud and that’s a safer space. Now do I agree with her? No. But liberals have no access to that at all. The thought is forbidden.

It sounds like what you’re saying is that you think liberals would be healthier if they expressed racism. 

Absolutely. Well, not racism, because racism is an action. Racism occurs in a couple situations: when you are unaware of aspects of your unconscious, then it will come out in the form of an action. So if you are not aware of your own hatred and rage, it’s going to come out in an action if the feeling is not metabolized. For people who can say that they hate something and work through that feeling, then there’s more hope there. That’s where the work really needs to happen. I can’t really help the liberal who says, “There’s no problem here.” I can’t do that much with that person. This country doesn’t really give white people the tools to deal with their negative feelings.

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From my experience, therapists tend to act pretty neutral. Is your practice like that? 

Not at all. I think that’s a part of the racist aspect of psychoanalysis, this idea that people are neutral is, I think, a complete fiction. But I would say that who I am inside the room is exactly who I am outside the room. My patients have a pretty good sense of who I am. I’m not the stereotype of the psychoanalyst where I’m withholding or won’t say anything or will just be there as a sounding board because that sounds really fucking cold and empty. That sounds awful. I do have people sit with their emotions and get into unconscious stuff but I’m there as myself to be with them.

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Do you think that it’s your mission or your job or your duty to get to the root of a white person’s racism or deal with their whiteness? 

No. That makes it seem like it’s for me. If I were to do that it would be selfish as fuck. Do I focus on ways I think race is seeped into everything, yes, but it’s not for me. I can actually see how white people are suffering in a way that is very unique and different from people of color.

What is the difference between white peoples’ suffering and the suffering of people of color? 

People of color, myself included, suffer from being positioned in the world, psychologically, and the stuff that goes with it: violence, this, that. Now, white people suffer from problems of their own mind. They suffer with trust, they suffer with intimacy, they suffer with closeness, shame, guilt, anxiety. They suffer with their minds. Don’t get me wrong, people of color are also neurotic and have their own stuff and ups and downs. But there is a fundamental issue I think that is very unique to white suffering and I think that’s their own mind.

What would you say is the cause of this? 

I think it’s colonialism. That history. If you do this much lying to yourself it’s going to have an effect on your mind. There’s no way it can’t.

How does that work? Are you talking about some kind of epigenetics or the passing down of the collective unconscious? I’m an American, a white woman, I don’t have any direct experience with colonialism although I’m sure I’ve benefited from it in some ways, but it’s hard to see how I would be traumatized by this thing that happened before I was born. 

I don’t think you do feel traumatized. White people experience this as normal. That’s their level of functioning that feels normal but it’s picked up in everything. It’s picked up in history, it’s picked up in all aspects of culture.

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So you think this is the effect of history?

I don’t think it’s an effect of history, I think it’s the effect of telling the lie. If you commit these acts, I don’t think someone is going to bitch slap you in the future. What got passed along were these lies about what actually happened. And those lies are internalized and become part of the culture.

What lie specifically are you talking about? 

One lie would be that any time white people say they discovered something. Any time they steal something they use the word “discovery.”

You mean like food? Culture? 

This country. That’s part of the rhetoric — “We discovered a country.” You haven’t discovered shit! But this idea is everywhere. Look at food bloggers who are like, “I invented something new,” and you’re like, “Oh so you added flaky salt. You added a twig of parsley.” Everything else is stolen.

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Let’s talk about your practice. You’ve mentioned that you treat a lot of white people and you treat “whiteness.” What is the distinction between the two? 

I wouldn’t say there is a distinction. For example, for white women, I do help a lot with passive-aggressiveness — not being able to use their voice, say things, feeling like there will be a negative consequence. White people have an intense level of guilt. I have never seen a level of guilt that I see among white people. I mean, white people don’t eat bread. Think about that. There have been wars all over the world over grains and bread and only here, white people are depriving themselves. Think about that shit. Everyone has this gluten allergy and you’re like, what the fuck is a gluten allergy? That’s a psychosomatic symptom. If you actually talk to a GI doctor, they’re going to say, “Well, there’s Celiac and there’s everything else” with a wink, and you know what the “everything else” is. It’s all the guilty gluten people.

Sure. There are lots of white people who don’t eat bread, although I am not one of them. I exclusively eat bread, and I’m also skeptical of some claims of gluten intolerance but my assumption has always been that they’re just buying into pseudoscientific B.S. and following health trends. You think it’s white guilt? 

On an emotional level, absolutely. Like, if I raise an eyebrow at a white person around bread, the first response is like, “It’s real.” What does that mean? They mean it’s not psychological.

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Let’s talk about your talk, “The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind.” How did you get invited to do Grand Rounds at Yale in the first place? 

I was invited to do it. A big part of my practice is also doing consultations for marginalized people and how they’ve been harmed in treatments, usually psychiatric or psychological treatments.

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Let me pull up the email you forwarded me from the dean real quick. The message is from someone in the department to the dean and it says: “Good morning, I was surprised to see the announcement for tomorrow’s grand rounds. I imagine replacing the words ‘white mind’ with ‘Asian mind’ or ‘gay mind’ as we work towards equity and inclusion and unity. I wonder what impact this presentation will have.” Let’s just address that. “Imagine replacing the words ‘white mind’ with ‘Asian mind’ or ‘gay mind’ as we work towards equity and inclusion and unity.” What’s your response to this? Does this person have a point? 

I think part of the anxiety is my using the word “white” and them having to reflect on that. And there was the use of the word “equity.” When I’m breaking this down psychologically, what they’re saying on some level is like, “We need things to be the same. If you can say ‘white,’ we can say ‘Asian.’” Psychologically, they’re actually making a false equivalence. What they’re doing psychologically is obliterating the difference between white and Asian, and if you obliterate the difference there’s no fucking problem here so shut up, you’re the real racist. That’s how it functions psychologically.

Let’s go through a bit of your talk here. You write: “This is the cost of talking to white people at all. The cost of your own life, as they suck you dry. There are no good apples out there. White people make my blood boil. Around five years ago, I took some actions. I systematically white-ghosted most of my white friends. And got rid of the couple white BIPOCs that snuck in my crew too. I  stopped watching the news. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. I have less than one percent left.  It was also a public service. I had fantasies of unloading a revolver into the head of any white person that got in my way, burying their body, and wiping my bloody hands as I walked away relatively guiltless with a bounce in my step. Like I did the world a fucking favor.” I can imagine that for some people the response to hearing a respected professional like yourself say that white people suck you dry and there are no good apples is going to be shame.

I think what a lot of people felt wasn’t shame but horror that I was in touch with aggressive feelings.

Sure. That makes sense. Do you find that this sort of rhetoric is effective or do people reject what you’re saying because it is violent? 

Before I gave the talk, I said, I want you to observe your thoughts and feelings as I talk. I said, there’s a difference between a thought, a fantasy, and an action. Now, my reflection on my own rage was actually that I was feeling impotent. So that’s where I was going with that. And kind of normalizing feelings of hatred. This is stuff that exists and I need to dive deep within myself to reflect on how it is that I got here. So there is a reality here, like did I actually cut white people out of my life? Absolutely.

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When you talk about it like that it does seem like you think that white people are going to have to give something up for equity. Do you think that’s true and if so what is that thing that white people are going to have to give up? 

It’s not a thing. It’s a way of being. It’s a level of certainty and control that just kind of came for them before.

Are you talking about jobs or money or . . . ?

Yeah, a lot of things. But I also think there’s a loss they have to go through that is psychological, too, and this might be the harder thing. If you know one way of existing and that’s been your way of existing and suddenly that feels like it’s changing on you, that’s terrifying.

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