Awakened by a Fist

ABSTRACT

“Awakened by a Fist: An Immigrant Narrative of Psychocultural Integration” describes the author’s reflections on the symbolic, psychocultural meaning of her immigration experiences. She focuses on a dream image that emerged decades after immigration upon crossing into a third cultural group—that of the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco as a candidate—and describes how cultural complexes are individually absorbed from the country of origin and entwined with those in the new culture. An immigrant’s mental well-being requires acceptance of life in the liminal mental space between continuity and change, between belonging and separating, and between the freedom and necessity to create.

KEY WORDS:

• indeterminant states, intersectionality, liminality, multicultural complexes, phantom image/narrative
• proculturation

NOTE

References to The Collected Works of C. G. Jung are cited in the text as CW, volume number, and paragraph number. The Collected Works are published in English by Routledge (UK) and Princeton University Press (USA).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lynn Alicia Franco

Lynn Alicia Franco is a licensed social worker and has been a member analyst of the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco since 2001 and presently serves as co-chair of the Diversity and Inclusivity Committee. In addition to her bilingual analytic practice, she is dedicated to the psychological integration of the sociocultural, economic, and political context of psyche in her teaching and consulting. The psychological meaning of her immigrant journey from Colombia to the United States has been expressed through writing and sculpting.