THE CITY OF BONES: SPECTRAL PRESENCES AS HEALERS OF CULTURAL COMPLEXES

Using the healing processes in poetry, literature, visual arts and
psychoanalysis, the presenters will consider how phantomatic and
ancestral forces act in us through “cultural complexes” and “phantom
narratives.” We will contemplate the ways we come to grips with our
collective histories of racial, ethnic, gender identities and biases
through reparation, implication, forgiveness and clinical work.

The contemporary written word from African Americans about
the spectral presences who act as our guides from our world to
in-between worlds, landing on mythical shores where history can
be revealed, witnessed, and cleansed in our souls will be used to
amplify the need for such presences. Clinical examples of this
process will be included.

SAM KIMBLES, PhD, is an analyst member of the C.G. Jung Institute of
San Francisco and a clinical professor at UCSF. His published books include:
Phantom Narratives: The Unseen Contribution of
Culture to Psyche and Transgenerational Complexes in
Analytical Psychology.

NAOMI RUTH LOWINSKY, PhD, is an analyst member of the C.G.
Jung Institute of San Francisco and a widely published and anthologized
poet. She is the winner of The Blue Light Poetry Prize and the Obama
Millennial Prize. Her fifth poetry collection Death and His Lorca,
was recently published.

ALAN VAUGHAN, JD, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and an analyst
member of the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco. He is the author
of many articles including recently, “Phenomenology of the Trickster
Archetype, U.S. Electoral Politics and the Black Lives Matter Movement”
in the Journal of Analytical Psychology.

FANNY BREWSTER, PhD, MFA, is a Jungian analyst and professor at
Pacifica Graduate Institute. She is the author of African Americans
and Jungian Psychology, Archetypal Grief: Slavery’s
Legacy and The Racial Complex.

MEDRIA CONNOLLY, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in private practice
in Santa Monica, CA. Her work is particularly attuned to the challenges
faced by people of color. Recently, Dr. Connolly has focused her attention
on the psychological case for reparations to descendants of American slavery.

BRYAN NICHOLS, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist with a practice
located in West Los Angeles, CA. Nichols is a certified trainer, and trainer
of trainers in the Effective Black Parenting Program. He has also conducted
numerous groups and trainings in anger management utilizing elements
of the “Dealing with Anger” program that was designed for African
American teens.