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 alliance may include psychic and relational dynamics that are easy to overlook: the burden of shame, the pressure to appear "high-functioning," and the quiet negotiation between being seen and remaining hidden. 

Drawing on his collaborative work with psychoanalyst Shinhee Han on racial melancholia, racial dissociation, racial rage, and racial guilt, Dr. David Eng will help us explore how these surface in treatment. 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.

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

Learning Objectives: Currently being finalized. CE hours pending approval.

ACCME Accreditation Statement: This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint providership of American Psychoanalytic Association, hosted by Seattle Psychanalytic Society and Institute & partner institutes, Alliance, Center for Object Relations, and Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. The American Psychoanalytic Association is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

AMA Credit Designation Statement: (Pending approval) The American Psychoanalytic Association designates this live activity for a maximum of 3.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Disclosure Statement: The APsA CE Committee has reviewed the materials for accredited continuing education and has determined that this activity is not related to the product line of ineligible companies and therefore, the activity meets the exception outlined in Standard 3: ACCME's identification, mitigation and disclosure of relevant financial relationship. This activity does not have any known commercial support.

This presentation meets the requirements of WAC 246-924-240 (Definition of Category of Creditable CPE). This program is pending approval for 3.0 CEUs by the NASW Washington State Chapter. Licensed Social Workers, Marriage and Family Therapists and Mental Health Counselors are eligible. Provider number is #1975-144.