Can individual psychology explain social phenomena? An appraisal of the theory of cultural complexes

This paper explores the nature of interdisciplinary research in psychoanalytic studies by critically assessing the theory of cultural complexes. Too often, 'applied psychoanalysis' becomes 'wild psychoanalysis' when interventions ignore the respective epistemologies and methodologies of the disciplines onto which depth psychological theories are being applied. The notion of cultural complexes is one such case. The claim that the idea is a uniquely Jungian contribution to understanding culture is challenged. Important methodological hurdles that arise when a psychology of the individual is mobilized to explain group phenomena are ignored, as are its debts to the discipline of history. Perhaps most problematic is how the theory potentially sustains a tyrannical framework whereby different ways of remembering a past are stifled.