Routledge, 2023
Exploring immigration from psychological, historical, clinical, and mythical perspectives, this book considers the varied and complex answers to questions of why people immigrate to entirely new places and leave behind their familiar surroundings and culture.
Using research reviews, extensive case material, and literary examples (such as Virgil’s The Aeneid), Robert Tyminski’s work will deepen readers’ understanding of what is both unique and universal about migratory experiences. He addresses the negative consequences of xenophobia, the acculturation experiences of children compared to adults, the trauma and psychological issues that arise when seeking refuge or relocating to a new country, and the more recent implications of COVID-19 upon border crossings.
“This is one of the most important books ever written by a Jungian analyst.”
—John Beebe, MD
Jungian analyst
“One of the most compelling things about this book is the way in which Robert Tyminski takes us on an impressionistic circumambulation around recurring themes. We travel alongside him, sharing in his discoveries.”
—Tom Singer, MD
Jungian Analyst
Immigration has turned into a divisive topic in many countries, especially the United States. For those of us who live in communities with higher concentrations of immigrants, the conversations in the media and by our political leaders can be disheartening. Ugly rhetoric frequently characterizes the Othering of immigrants by seeking to rile so-called natives against perceived intruders who will __________(readers can fill in the blank here with some negative attribute)—essentially anything that ejects unpleasant human traits onto them, such as criminality, poverty, illiteracy, disease, immorality, fanaticism, insatiable neediness, unpatriotic tendencies, and dangerous aggression, to name but some of the oft-cited labels hurled at immigrants.
Othering is a psychological process, both at the individual and group levels, in which what we don’t accept in ourselves is projected outward at people we dislike and want to distance from. Jungians call this an activation of shadow material that disposes unintegrated psychic contents elsewhere because we don’t want to bear them ourselves. This process is both defensive, using more primitive defenses like projection and denial, and a kind of object relations stance that splits into concrete, simplistic categories, such as us/them, good/bad, and familiar/foreign. At a social level, group relations theory calls this scapegoating, something that of course can be a part of virtually any group when conflicts around differences are avoided and defended against. Othering is an externalization of what we don’t want in ourselves, and that can encompasses what we don’t want in our families and communities.