Daniel Gaztambide, PsyD: Identity, Oppression, and Liberation Psychology – ReRooted – Ep. 28

Daniel Gaztambide, PsyD joins Francesca to discuss identity, oppression, and A People’s History of Psychoanalysis: From Freud to Liberation Psychology. Daniel Gaztambide PsyD is a clinical psychologist who helps professionals feel confident and fulfilled at work and their relationships. He teaches psychotherapy, cultural competency, and critical theory as assistant professor of clinical psychology at the New School for Social Research, where he is the director of the Culture and Mental Health Lab. He is the author of the book A People’s History of Psychoanalysis: From Freud to Liberation Psychology. Learn more about him at www.drgpsychotherapy.com Identity Projection Daniel shares that identity has to do with a kind of wounding. We are not born having a sense of who or what we are. We discover who or what we are as it is mirrored or reflected in ‘the other.’ Sometimes this is a cracked mirror, reflecting a broken nature within ourselves. What happens when identity is a function of this kind of wounding? What happens when these wounds become weaponized against ourselves and others? “Identity is constructed out of different ruptures that occur both interpersonally and intimately, certainly in our family of origin, but also more broadly in terms of signifiers of race, class, sexuality, and gender. The construction of these identities serves a political purpose to maintain systems of control and domination.” -Daniel Gaztambide PsyD Within the dynamic of exploitation, an identification with the offender can take place, creating a system of cascading oppression and disparity. As we are classified into our identities, we are exploited for our differences and identifications. Much of this exploitation is overlooked; though, because each specific identity group is riding the exploitation of the one beneath, or next to them. This is the game being played by the current system. “We get stuck within the language of oppression itself; winners and losers, oppressors and oppressed. This blinds us to seeing the bigger gam