Visiting Lecture Series: “Hybrids, Fluidity and Expanding a Conceptualization of the Psyche”, with Robert Tyminski, D.M.H.
Date – November 1, 2025
Time- 12 pm – 2:30 pm EST
Cost- $75
On Zoom
Thirteenth century mosaic from the Alhambra, Nasrid Empire, Granada, Spain.
“Hybrids, Fluidity and Expanding a Conceptualization of the Psyche”
Hybrids blend elements together in surprising, unpredictable ways. They are magical, which adds to their fascination. This lecture begins by describing a myth about hybrids, the Chimera. I will discuss where Jung refers to the Chimera. His main reference is within a 1942 essay about Paracelsus that Jung gave as a talk to commemorate 400 years since Paracelsus’s death. I’ll review why Paracelsus was such an intriguing figure for Jung. Following this, I provide examples of hybridity that are contemporary. The three that I concentrate on are:
1) Adolescents playing with gender fluidity;
2) The collective merger with screens of all kinds that have become like auxiliary brains or selves; and
3) The analytic field.
A part of my talk explores the concept of gender expansiveness. This term refers to a person’s self-identifying as gender fluid, genderqueer, transgender, nonbinary, gender diverse, or gender nonconforming. Young people, including older children and adolescents, increasingly are experimenting with crossing gender lines. This trend can be understood as a sociocultural process for humanizing more terrifying archetypal forms of gender diversity.
Using Henderson’s concept of the cultural unconscious, I’ll look at social developments among youth that bring gender expansiveness more into collective consciousness. This issue has occasioned a strong counterreaction with panicked appeals to upholding traditional gender norms and asserting a necessity to restrict gender-affirming care. Examples from myth, literature and clinical practice help to contextualize the intense emotions aroused by gender diversity. A case example shows how gender fantasies are worked through within an empathic analytic relationship. Older psychological theories struggle with gender fluidity because of reliance on binary polarities and discrete opposites. A potential new approach to incorporate gender expansiveness is through a model of the psyche as a mosaic that combines many things at once.
Robert Tyminski, D.M.H. is an adult and child analyst member of the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco and a past president (2014-16). He is the author of Male Alienation at the Crossroads of Identity, Culture and Cyberspace (Routledge, 2018), Crooked Lines (2016), and The Psychology of Theft and Loss: Stolen and Fleeced (Routledge, 2014). He is a 2025 and 2016 winner of the Michael Fordham Prize from the Journal of Analytical Psychology. His latest book is The Psychological Effects of Immigrating: A Depth Psychology Perspective on Relocating to a New Place. He is currently working on a new book about analysis and psychotherapy with boys and young men.
DATE AND TIME
Saturday, November 1, 2025
12 pm – 2:30 pm EST on Zoom
Cost:
$75
2.5 MHC and SW CEUs will be available ($15 CEU fee)
Public Registration