Self, Culture, and Others in Womanist Practical Theology

Self, Culture, and Others in Womanist Practical Theology argues for a critical engagement between womanist theology and psychoanalytic Self Psychology. Sheppards position is that a psychoanalytically informed womanist practical theology will more fully account for the complexities of black womens experiences of self and black embodiment as well as the role of religion and cultural objects in self understanding. This psychoanalytic turn allows us not only to examine practices of care in relation to black women but also to direct a psychoanalytic lens toward womanist theological anthropology, embodiment, pedagogy, psychology of religion, as well as psychoanalytic reader response to engagement with scripture. In the end, her work challenges and advances both psychoanalysis and womanist thought.

Phillis Isabella Sheppard is an Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology at North Park Theological Seminary. She is also a psychoanalyst in private practice. She received her post-masters clinical training at the Center for Religion and Psychotherapy of Chicago, where she served on the faculty and clinical staff for 7 years, and she completed her psychoanalytic training at the Institute for Psychoanalysis in Chicago. She earned her M.A. in Theology at Colgate Rochester Divinity School and her Ph.D. at Chicago Theological Seminary.

Black As You See Me * PART I: LIVING BLACKNESS: WOMANIST PERSPECTIVES ON BLACK WOMENS EXPERIENCE * Living Blackness: Black Womens Experience of Religion * The Current Shape of Womanist Practical Theology * Suffering and Pain, Longing and Love: Womanist Theological Perspectives on Psychic Experience * PART II: PSYCHOANALYSIS AND BLACK EXPERIENCE: CRITIQUE AND APPROPRIATION * Black Psychoanalysis and Black Feminist Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism: Resources Toward a Critical Appropriation of Psychoanalysis * PART III: WOMANIST PRACTICAL THEOLOGY * Black Women and Self Psychology: Toward a Usable Dialogue * PART III: WOMANIST PRACTICAL THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION * Black Embodiment and Religious Experience after Trauma: Womanist Self Psychological Perspective on the Mourning of Cultural Selfobjects * A Dark Body of Goodness Created in the Image of God:  Navigating Sexuality, Race, and Gender Alone and Together * Black and Beautiful: Reading the Song of Songs * Final Thoughts: Womanist Practices