Mandate

There are concerns over increasing incidents of prejudice throughout the world, emanating from a number of sources, particularly of a racial, ethnic and religious nature. This warrants a review of psychoanalytic understanding of these issues, and the formulation of possible courses of action to counter such phenomena by providing non-psychoanalytic groups, whose job it is to deal with such prejudice, - for example, educators, social workers, clergy and lay mediators, and jurists - with psychoanalytic material in written or electronic form.

The mandate of this Working Group includes:

1. to review the psychoanalytic literature with regard to prejudice.

2. to gather new information on significant incidents of prejudice, particularly in identifying trends in such incidents.

3. to develop a psychoanalytic understanding of these developments, and

4. to propose potential courses of action by the IPA aimed at the public benefit, including proposals for publications, outreach and information initiatives.

The Working Group will be under the aegis of the Task Force on Outreach since its mandate is clearly focussed on the contributions that psychoanalysis can make to understanding and attenuating these scourges, locally, nationally and internationally.

Approved by the Board by e.mail September 2005

Revision to clarify mandate and put the Committee under the aegis of the Task Force on Outreach agreed by the Board August 2009