The Colors of Childhood: Separation-Individuation across Cultural, Racial, and Ethnic Diversity

by Salman Akhtar, Selma Kramer

How does culture affect child-rearing practices? How do factors such as poverty, ethnic difference, racial minority status, and having immigrant parents alter the experience of a growing child? Are there culturally distinct sub-groups within the African-American population? How ubiquitous are psychoanalytically derived schedules of personality development? In what form and to what extent are transference and countertransference affected by such racial, ethnic, and economic issues? In this volume, eight distinguished psychoanalysts (including some belonging to ethnic and racial minorities) attempt to answer these questions. They provide illuminating details of child-rearing practices in African-American, Indian, and Japanese families. They interweave mythological legacies, historical background, ethnographic data, and clinical observations into a rich tapestry of knowledge, empathy, and understanding. They try to tease out the variables of socioeconomic class from the issue of race and the ambiguities consequent upon raising children in a new and unfamiliar land from the ordinary and inevitable conflicts between generations.

236 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Salman Akhtar is an Indian-American psychoanalyst practicing in the United States. He is an author and Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia.