Phantom Narratives: The Unseen Contributions of Culture to Psyche

by Samuel Kimbles

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Author: Samuel Kimbles

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Hardcover:
ISBN 10: 1442231890
ISBN 13: 978-1442231894

In Phantom Narratives: The Unseen Contributions of Culture to Psyche, Samuel Kimbles explores collective shadow processes, intergenerational transmission of group traumas, and social suffering as examples of how culture contributes to the formation of unseen, or phantom, narratives. These unseen narratives bundle together a number of themes around belonging, identity, identification, shadow, identity politics and otherness dynamics, and the universal striving for recognition. These dynamics enter the superego of our collective consciousness long before we are conscious of how they contribute to the shaping of our attitudes toward self and others, us and them (significantly contributing to scapegoat dynamics), emotionally generating fascination, possessiveness, disavowal and entitlement, and shame and fear. Also included in this book is an elaboration of Bion’s work on groups in the context of thinking about cultural complexes that helps to flesh out how human groupings generate processes that support and hinder the development of consciousness in both individuals and groups. Kimbles argues that the awareness that can come through an understanding of cultural dynamics as manifested through cultural complexes and cultural phantoms in combination with the development of cultural consciousness can lead to an understanding of how groups can develop and individuals in groups can individuate.

Review

Samuel Kimbles’s Phantom Narratives is a masterful work that explores the significant ways in which we are the creations of invisible ('phantom') narratives. The book compellingly develops an understanding of the ways in which invisible cultural phenomena powerfully influence both what we think and the way we think. This form of acculturation limits our ability to understand one another, both in our individual relationships and in groups. The book comes to life not only clinically, but also as a penetrating commentary on important contemporary social issues. This is an outstanding piece of clinical and theoretical work. (Thomas Ogden, MD, The Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California)

That culture is all over psyche is hardly a new discovery, but the specificity of the images that linger to express what has been imposed upon our emotional lives by the cultural past can be startling. Samuel Kimbles is not afraid to take an interest in such phenomena. He knows how to let each phantom tell its story. Because he doesn’t slight the gravitas of what cannot bring itself to be forgotten, he is convincing when he claims that the cultural past may well be sticking around to haunt us because it wants us to imagine a different future. (John Beebe, MD, University of California, San Francisco)

Cultural attitudes are absorbed into our individual concepts of self, and most often we are unaware of the ways in which we have been acculturated. As a consequence, these cultural attitudes operate unconsciously, affecting our own self-perception as well as the way we perceive others. In Phantom Narratives: The Unseen Contributions of Culture to Psyche, Samuel Kimbles argues that it is imperative for a society to question its cultural complexes in order to fully engage the problems a society faces. On an individual level, cultural complex awareness and analysis can permit us to explore the most private and subjective psychic experiences of intergenerational complexes. On a collective level, analysis can alleviate social suffering and other psychic disturbances of the human condition.

About the Author

Samuel Kimbles is a clinical psychologist and Jungian analyst, as well as associate clinical professor at the University of California, San Francisco.