Dorothy Evans Holmes


Dorothy Evans Holmes is an American psychoanalytic thinker, psychoanalyst and psychotherapist. She is known for her work on racial and cultural trauma.

Early life and education

Holmes was born in 1943 and was raised in Chicago, Illinois, United States. She has a twin sister called Doris.
Holmes studied a PhD in psychology at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois and spent a year working as an Intern in Psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, under the supervision of Charles DeLeon. She then completed a two-year psychoanalytical post-doctoral program in Psychiatry at the University of Rochester. She became a member of the Baltimore Washington American Psychoanalytic Association Institute.

Career

Between 1970 and 1973, Holmes taught at the University of Maryland, College Park, before teaching at Howard University in Washington, D.C. from 1973 to 1998. She has been a member of the National Register of Health Service Psychologists since 1975. Holmes became Program Director of the Clinical Psychology PsyD Program at the George Washington University in 1998, working at GWU until her retirement in 2011.
Holmes is a leading thinker in the field of psychoanalysis on the impact of racial and cultural trauma on mental health. She has criticised the reluctance of traditional psychoanalytic institutions and clinicians to address culturally imposed trauma and recognise the resultant harm. She also put forward the theory that "both analyst and analysand collude in avoiding dealing with race in the transference, because of its links to violent impulses and the deeply embedded cultural racism."
Holmes presented at the 2013 Black Psychoanalysts Speak Conference, and was featured in the documentary made about the conference, Black Psychoanalysts Speak, directed by Basia Winograd. In 2017, Holmes worked as a training and supervising analyst with the Psychoanalytic Education Center of the Carolinas, who offer the Holmes Fellowship in her honour.
In 2020, The Holmes Commission on Racial Equality in American Psychoanalysis was established, with support of the American Psychoanalytic Association, to study systemic racism in American psychoanalysis and produce an action plan for recommended changes to the APsA's governance structures, policies and practices. Holmes served as Chairperson of the commission.
Holmes served on the editorial boards of The ''International Journal of Psychoanalysis and The Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association.'' She is also a Trustee on the Board of the Accreditation Council of Psychoanalytic Education.

Select publications

  • Holmes, Dorothy Evans., pp. 1–11.
  • Holmes, Dorothy Evans.. Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 1 pp. 319–332.
  • Holmes, Dorothy Evans.. in Moodley, Roy and Palmer, Stephen Race, Culture and Psychotherapy: Critical Perspectives in Multicultural Practice. London: Routledge.
  • Holmes, Dorothy Evans.. in Levine, Susan S. Dignity Matters: Psychoanalytic and Psychosocial Perspectives. London: Routledge.
  • Holmes, Dorothy Evans.. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 26, pp. 641–654.
  • Holmes, Dorothy Evans.. "Come Hither, American Psychoanalysis: Our Complex Multicultural America Needs What We Have to Offer." Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 64, pp. 568–586.
  • Holmes, Dorothy Evans.. The American Psychoanalyst, 51. pp. 1–9.
  • Holmes, Dorothy Evans/. "Our Country ‘tis of We and Them: Psychoanalytic Perspectives on our Fractured American Identity" American Imago, 36, pp. 359–379.
  • Holmes, Dorothy Evans/. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 69, pp. 237–258.

Awards