ETW25-26 Cultural Complexes
Section 12: Cultural Complexes Operating in the Overlap of Clinical and
Cultural Space
Instructors: Samuel Kimbles, PhD
Dates: April 29, 2026
Description: This course explores how the emergence of Cultural Complexes in the clinical setting is related to personal complexes and affects the relationship between patient and clinician. We will combine two concepts: the cultural unconscious and cultural complexes as they are encountered in our clinical work. We will look at how cultural complexes live in the psyche of individuals and takes on and manifest in the suffering of our clients and clinical dynamics in our work.
Main Teaching Points, Learning Objectives, and Reading Assignments
April 29, 2026
Main Teaching Point: the seminar is oriented to increase clinicians’ competence in dealing with issues around diversity. To increase clinicians’ awareness of the impact of cultural context on both clinicians and patients. A clinician’s awareness of diversity and cultural context is associated with feeling understood by patients and clinicians better expression of empathy by clinicians. Participants will learn to differentiate between personal and cultural complexes. Participants will learn how these complexes come alive in the transference and countertransference and are expressed in the personal histories, dreams and fantasies of the other.
Learning Objective: Participants will be able to describe their development of greater cultural sensitivity and be able to name an example of their own implicit biases and a cultural complex about cultural difference.
Reading: Assignments:
Kimbles, S. (2014) Chapter 3: Phantoms Travel-Journey to Africa, Cultural Melancholia in Black and White., in Phantom Narratives: The Unseen Contributions of Culture to Psyche. Rowman & Littlefield, N.Y.
Kimbles, S. (2021) Chapter 3: Phantoms at the Cultural Level, in Intergenerational Complexes in Analytical Psychology: The Suffering of Ghosts Routledge, NY .
Date: Apr 29, 2026 07:00 PM - 09:15 PM
Fee
CE Hours
Registration closes on Mar 20, 2027 12:00 AM
Accreditation(s)
