The Cultural Complex

Based on Jung's theory of complexes, this book offers a new perspective on conflicts between groups and cultures, demonstrating how the effects of cultural complexes can be felt in the behaviour of disenfranchised groups across the world.

How do cultural complexes affect the collective psyche? Based on Jung's theory of complexes, this book offers a new perspective on the psychological nature of conflicts between groups and cultures by introducing the concept of the cultural complex. This modern version of Jung's idea offers an original view of the forces that prevent human attempts to bring a peaceful, collaborative spirit to conflict between groups. Leading analysts and academics from a range of cultural backgrounds present their own perspective on the concept, demonstrating how the effects of cultural complexes can be felt in the behaviour of disenfranchised, oppressed and traumatised groups across the world. Ultimately, a clearer understanding of the source and nature of group conflict is reached through discussion of central subjects including: * Collective trauma and cultural complexes * Exploring racism: a clinical example of a cultural complex * Cultural complexes in the history of Jung, Freud and their followers. The Cultural Complex represents a valuable contribution to analytical psychology and will undoubtedly also stimulate dialogue in the fields of sociology, political science and cultural studies.

Based on Jung's theory of complexes, this book offers a new perspective on conflicts between groups and cultures, demonstrating how the effects of cultural complexes can be felt in the behaviour of disenfranchised groups across the world.

Trauma, Cultural Complexes, and Transformation: Folk Narratives and Present Realities contributes to our understanding of how culturally traumatic events affect present day realities, and suggests the potential for healing by combining theories on psychological trauma, cultural complexes, and transformations. It draws on insight from a range of disciplines, including Jungian psychology, literary criticism, folkloristics, neurosciences, quantum physics, and social studies. Evija Volfa Vestergaard maps folk narratives of human encounters with extra-human entities as communications of cultural traumas suffered by tellers who are embedded in particular historical and geographical settings, focusing on the little-explored globally emerging cultures of Latvia and South Africa, alongside the United States of America. These cultural narratives form a bridge to a discourse on the social, political, and economic issues faced by these countries and the world at large. Vestergaard outlines the parallels between dreams and visions of individuals essential in healing, and the mythological legend genre serving the same function for groups and cultures, demonstrating that the aim of these open-ended communications is not only to reveal hidden truth, but also to stir our imagination about potentialities. Healing of traumas demands a world of global relatedness based on nurturing kinship, and such a transformation begins with imagining. Trauma, Cultural Complexes, and Transformation represents essential reading for academics and students of Jungian and post-Jungian studies, folklore, psychology, cultural studies and anthropology, as well as Jungian analysts and psychotherapists.

Vision, Reality and Complex brings together a rich selection of Thomas Singer’s scholarship on the development of the cultural complex theory and explores the relationship between vision, reality, and illusion in politics and psyche. The chapters in this book discuss the basic principles of the cultural complex theory in various national and international contexts that span the Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump eras. Each chapter grounds this theory in practical examples, such as race and healthcare in the United States, or in specific historical and international conflicts between groups, whether they be ethnic, racial, gender, local, national or global. With chapters on topics including mythology, leadership, individuation, revolution, war, and the soul, Singer’s work provides unique insights into contemporary culture, activism, and politics. This collection of essays demonstrates how the cultural complex theory applies in specific contexts while simultaneously having cross-cultural relevance through the reemergence of complexes throughout history. It is essential reading for academics and students of Jungian and post-Jungian ideas, politics, sociology, and international studies, as well as for practicing and trainee analysts alike.

Set against the rich and troubled tapestry of the West’s Greco-Roman inheritance, the Sanskrit root 'manth/-', which roughly translates to “a churn” ('mantha') or “to churn” ('manth') in Sanskrit, serves as a cauldron into which age-old binaries are blended. A mantha of the Greek metaphysical notion of the One and the Many drives explorations of a variety of themes, including the Feminine and the Masculine, Self and Other, East and West, Heroes and Monsters, Olympians and Titans, Creativity and Innovation. Accordingly, the psychoanalytic canon is (re)introduced to a diversity of perspectives, from linguistics and Translation Studies to educational theory and horror fiction. Guided by the 'Opus Contra Culturam', Warford, infusing his background in linguistics, Translation Studies, Spanish, Sociocultural Theory, and Global Humanities, demonstrates the importance of stretching beyond what is known in one’s cultural milieu, that “one” taking many forms: the citizen, the student, the professional, the innovator, the scholar, and the infinite intersections of group identifications into which we are susceptible to being siloed. Specific topics include cultural complexes and trauma, Titanism, integrative approaches to human development and learning theory, the Monstrous, as well as creativity and innovation studies.

The stimulating program featured clinical, artistic, historical and other interests and concerns of Jungian Psychology today, with wide-ranging presentations and events. From the Contents: Cultural Complexes in the Group and the Individual Psyche by Thomas Singer, Sam Kimbles Descent and Emergence Symbolized in Four Alchemical Paintings by Dyane Sherwood An Archetypal Approach to Drugs and AIDS: A Brazilian Perspective by Dartiu Xavier da Silveira Frida Kahlo by Mathy Hemsari Cassab Images from ARAS: Healing our Sense of Exile from Nature by Ami Ronnberg Trauma and Individuation by Ursula Wirtz Human Being Human: Subjectivity and the Individuation of Culture by Christopher Hauke Studies of Analytical Long-Term Therapy by Wolfram Keller, Rainer Dilg & Seth Isaiah Rubin Analysis in the Shadow of Terror by Henry Abramovitch Ethics in the IAAP – A New Resource by Luigi Zoja, Liliana Wahba & Hester Solomon Hope Abandoned and Recovered in the Psychoanalytic Situation by Donald Kalsched In the Footsteps of Eranos by P. Kugler, H. Kawai, D. Miller, G. Quispel & R. Hinshaw The Self, the Symbolic and Synchronicity by George Hogenson Memory and Emergence by John Dourley Bild, Metapher & Symbol: An der Grenze der kommunizierbaren Erfahrung by M. Krapp Broken Vessels – Living in two Worlds: Some Aspects of Working with Clients with a Physical Disability by Kathrin Asper & Elizabeth Martigny

The stimulating program featured clinical, artistic, historical and other interests and concerns of Jungian Psychology today, with wide-ranging presentations and events. From the Contents: Cultural Complexes in the Group and the Individual Psyche by Thomas Singer, Sam Kimbles Descent and Emergence Symbolized in Four Alchemical Paintings by Dyane Sherwood An Archetypal Approach to Drugs and AIDS: A Brazilian Perspective by Dartiu Xavier da Silveira Frida Kahlo by Mathy Hemsari Cassab Images from ARAS: Healing our Sense of Exile from Nature by Ami Ronnberg Trauma and Individuation by Ursula Wirtz Human Being Human: Subjectivity and the Individuation of Culture by Christopher Hauke Studies of Analytical Long-Term Therapy by Wolfram Keller, Rainer Dilg & Seth Isaiah Rubin Analysis in the Shadow of Terror by Henry Abramovitch Ethics in the IAAP – A New Resource by Luigi Zoja, Liliana Wahba & Hester Solomon Hope Abandoned and Recovered in the Psychoanalytic Situation by Donald Kalsched In the Footsteps of Eranos by P. Kugler, H. Kawai, D. Miller, G. Quispel & R. Hinshaw The Self, the Symbolic and Synchronicity by George Hogenson Memory and Emergence by John Dourley Bild, Metapher & Symbol: An der Grenze der kommunizierbaren Erfahrung by M. Krapp Broken Vessels – Living in two Worlds: Some Aspects of Working with Clients with a Physical Disability by Kathrin Asper & Elizabeth Martigny