The Asian American Experience Across the Classroom and the Clinic

What does it mean to be racialized as invisible, not only to others, but to oneself? 

And what happens when that invisibility enters the consulting room, whether in the experience of an Asian American clinician or patient? The therapeutic encounter may include psychic and relational dynamics that are often misrecognized: the burden of shame, the expectation for compliance, the pressure to appear “high-functioning,” and the quiet negotiation between being seen and remaining hidden. 

In this talk, Dr. Eng will turn to rage and the uses of anger for Asian Americans, engaging the series Beef and his new essay in progress, "Racial Hate in the Countertransference," which draws on the work of D.W. Winnicott. With a focus on clinical interactions, he will also present a case history from the clinic or the classroom. 

Drawing on his collaborative work with psychotherapist Shinhee Han on racial melancholia, racial dissociation, racial rage, and racial guilt, Dr. David Eng will help us explore how these racialized formations manifest in the treatment of Asian Americans. Join us to consider how the transference and countertransference in your own work shape what becomes speakable and what remains unspoken.

Presenter: David L. Eng is Richard L. Fisher Professor of English and Faculty Director of the Program in Asian American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is also Professor in the Programs in Comparative Literature & Literary Theory and Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies. After receiving his B.A. in English from Columbia University and his Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of California at Berkeley, he taught at Columbia and Rutgers before joining Penn in 2007. Eng has held visiting professorships at the University of Bergen (Norway), King’s College London, Harvard University, and the University of Hong Kong. He is the recipient of research fellowships from the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, and the Mellon Foundation, among others. In 2016, Eng was elected an honorary member of the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research (IPTAR) in New York City. In 2021, he was awarded the Kessler Prize from the Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS), which is given to a scholar and/or activist who has produced a body of work that has had a significant influence on the field of LGBTQ Studies. In 2024, in recognition of his and Shinhee Han’s groundbreaking writings on psychoanalysis and race, The Asian American Center for Psychoanalysis (TAACP) launched “The Eng & Han Essay Prize.” His areas of specialization include American studies, Asian American studies, Asian diaspora, critical race theory, psychoanalysis, queer studies, gender studies, and visual culture.

Eng is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and a former Chair of the Board of the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in New York City. He is a member of the editorial boards of GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, JAPA: Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, Psychoanalytic Dialogues, Social Text, and Studies in Gender and Sexuality: Psychoanalysis, Cultural Studies, Treatment, Research. Currently, he is a convenor of The Law & Humanities Workshop, a consortium organized among Boston University School of Law, Georgetown University Law Center, Stanford Law School, UCLA School of Law, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Southern California Center for Law, History, and Culture. In addition, Eng is also serving on the Committee of Scholars for the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum.

Suggested preparation before the event. Participants are encouraged to:

1. Watch Beef, Season 1
2. Read Audre Lorde's essay "The Uses of Anger"
    

Eng is author of four monographs: 

• Reparations and the Human (Duke, 2025)
• Racial Melancholia, Racial Dissociation: On the Social and Psychic Lives of Asian Americans (co-authored with Shinhee Han, Duke, 2019, winner of the Boyer Book Prize and Association for Asian American Studies Book Award Honorable Mention)
• The Feeling of Kinship: Queer Liberalism and the Racialization of Intimacy (Duke, 2010)
• Racial Castration: Managing Masculinity in Asian America (Duke, 2001). 

He is co-editor with:

• David Kazanjian of Loss: The Politics of Mourning (California, 2003) 
• Alice Y. Hom of Q & A: Queer in Asian America (Temple, 1998, winner of a Lambda Literary Award and Association of Asian American Studies Book Award). 
• Jasbir Puar, of three special issues of the journal Social Text: “Left of Queer” (2020), with Teemu Ruskola and Shuang Shen, “China and the Human” (2011/2012), and with Jack Halberstam and José Esteban Muñoz, “What’s Queer about Queer Studies Now?” (2005).

Schedule: (Updated Schedule)
9:00 AM: Doors open. Complimentary breakfast will be available.
9:30 AM - 12:30 PM: Dr. David Eng presentation.

Learning Objectives: 

1. Learners will describe the key aspects of racial melancholia, rage, guilt, and dissociation that underlies "racial invisibility", shame and the pressure to be high functioning experienced by Asian and Asian American patients
2. Learners will prepare for the impact of patient over-compliance and the experience of invisibility in treatment with Asian and Asian American patients.
3. Learners will more effectively predict and be more clinically responsive to racial rage and racial guilt that manifest in the transference and counter transference dynamics with Asian and Asian American patients.

CONTINUING EDUCATION CREDITS

In support of improving patient care, this activity has been planned and implemented by the American Psychoanalytic Association and Seattle Psychoanalytic Society and Institute.The American Psychoanalytic Association is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.

Credits Available:

• Physicians: 3.00 Credits
• Psychologists: 3.00 Credits
• Social Workers: 3.00 Credits
• PAs: 3.00 Credits
• Nurses & NPs: 3.00 Nursing Contact Hours
• Pharmacists/Pharmacy Technicians: 3.00 Credits
  Pharmacists must claim credits within 30 days and provide their eProfile ID and Birthdate. APsA will not report credits claimed after 30 days or with incomplete information.
• Interprofessional Continuing Education: 3.00 Credits

Other Profession Types

Other profession types will receive a certificate of attendance upon completion of the activity and online evaluation confirming their participation. Participants may claim credit for recertification; however, their professional organization/institute hold the final say on which accredited activities they accept.

Disclosure Statement

None of the planners and presenters for this educational activity have relevant financial relationship(s)* to disclose with ineligible companies* whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients. There is no commercial support for this activity. APsA verifies that all materials generated by AI are accurate, including cited publications and posttests.

*Financial relationships are relevant if the educational content an individual can control is related to the business lines or products of the ineligible company. — Updated December 2022