Assistant Professor, Psychology
Ph.D, Smith College School for Social Work, 2021
MSW, Simmons University School of Social
Work, 2013
BA, New York University, 2010
PSYCH 270: Abnormal Psychology
PSYCH 350, Theories of Personality
PSYCH 495: Psychoanalysis
PSYCH 440: Counseling Methods in Psychology
PSYCH 397: Case-Based Research Methods
All my work—as a scholar, teacher, psychotherapist, and activist—addresses the causes and effects of violence, abuse, discrimination, and bigotry. The unifying project of my research is understanding Whiteness through psychoanalysis. I investigate how Whiteness developed as a supremacist ideology, how this ideology becomes encoded in individual psychology, and how it then expresses itself through different forms of aggression. My dissertation explored the role of Whiteness in the Columbine High School shooting, and school shootings more broadly. I am currently engaged in a qualitative study of BIPOC experiences of discrimination in psychoanalytic professional organizations, and have an active program of theory-building within psychoanalysis about issues of racism, authoritarianism, and aggression.
My interests in aggression and identity also inform my practice as a therapist, which is geared towards working psychoanalytically with fellow queer people of color dealing with complex trauma. I continue to see patients and supervise fellow clinicians, in part because remaining an active practitioner is helpful to me as a scholar and a teacher. In addition, I remain involved in a number of activist organizations and projects. Some of these are specific to psychology and involve advocating against discrimination and bigotry; others are more community-based, such as advocacy and organizing work I have done regarding Afghan refugee resettlement.
My teaching at MCLA is focused primarily on the theory and practice of clinical psychology and clinical social work, though I also teach about qualitative research methods. My goal is to prepare students for working with real people, whether as direct care providers in the human services, as therapists-in-training, or in any capacity that requires them to be sensitive, thoughtful, and ethical.
*In my references, a star indicates a former student.
Outside of psychology, I am passionate about food! I live on a small farm and do a great deal of growing/gathering/hunting/preserving food for my family. I write the recipe column for my local newspaper—"Larder Ardor with Carter Carter." The column takes local food and recipes as a jumping-off point for exploring broader issues related to foodways, environmentalism, colonialism, and more—it's public scholarship, through snacks. The general idea is to imagine what local food in Western Mass can look like as the region becomes more culturally diverse, from the perspective of a multiracial and multicultural cook. I am featured in a forthcoming PBS documentary, talking about hunting as an important component of environmental conservation and local food security.
https://en.calameo.com/accounts/5416692
Carter, C. (in press). Portraiture as Case Methodology. In The Routledge Encyclopedia of Qualitative Research Methods. Oxford, UK: Routledge.
Carter, C. (2020). Towards Antiracist Psychoanalytic Research. Journal for the Advancement of Scientific Psychoanalytic Empirical Research 3 (2), 13-28.
Carter, C., *Walker, J., Brewster, M.K. & *Bredesen, T. (2021, March 18-21). Reckoning with the Dilemmas of Multiracial Clinicians [conference presentation]. APA Division 39 Annual Spring Meeting, New York, NY.
Carter, C., *Venkatraman, T., *Beah, G. & *Amr, F. (2021, March 18-21). Clinicians of Color Reckoning with Idealizing Transference APA Division 39 Annual Spring Meeting, New York, NY.
