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‘Dr. Robert Tyminski takes us on an epic journey through the heart and
soul of immigrant experience, its traumas and psychological stressors. It is
a book written from both a heartfelt personal and mythical perspective,
and widespread practical and clinical experience. His vision is filtered
through his unique conceptualization of perimeter and identity, and he
unearths and challenges the roots of society’s xenophobic and racist
practices. It is a wonderful book of humanness and homecoming.’
Marcus West is author of Into the Darkest Places: Early
Relational Trauma and Borderline States of Mind

‘Robert Tyminski’s book offers lively, full-blooded consulting room

stories working with patients of all ages; the binding through-line has to
do with immigration but, without a doubt, this book is a treasure trove
for students learning the art/craft of psychotherapy. Further, he applies
clinical skills as a cultural anthropologist exploring the very real
struggles of refugees from Syria who have relocated to Germany.
Tyminski coherently weaves well-told tales from the individual to
collectives across cultural/geographical/generational divides and within
our own country where gay people often feel like foreigners.’
Linda Carter is a Jungian analyst in Carpinteria, California
The Psychological Effects
of Immigrating

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. Tyminski also re-evaluates the term identity as a psychological
shorthand, suggesting that it can flatten our understanding of human
complexity and erase migrant and refugee life stories and differences. As one
of few books to investigate immigration from a Jungian-oriented
perspective, Robert Tyminski’s work offers a new and broad perspective
on the mental health issues related to immigration.
This book will prove essential for clinicians working with refugees and
migrants, when in training and in practice, as well as students and
practitioners of psychoanalysis seeking to deepen their understanding of
migratory experiences.

Robert Tyminski is a Jungian analyst in San Francisco. He is a member and

past president of the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco. His previous
books were Male Alienation at the Crossroads of Identity, Culture and
Cyberspace and The Psychology of Theft and Loss: Stolen and Fleeced.
The Psychological Effects
of Immigrating

A Depth Psychology Perspective on

Relocating to a New Place

Robert Tyminski
Cover image: Juanmonino; © Getty Images
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Robert Tyminski
The right of Robert Tyminski to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
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Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record has been requested for this book

ISBN: 978-0-367-63545-9 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-367-63547-3 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-11959-3 (ebk)

DOI: 10.4324/9781003119593

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For my grandparents
Contents

Foreword x
Acknowledgments xiv
Credits List xvii

1 Where Do I Belong? 1

2 “Just Black Sometimes” 29

3 Long Wandering 50

4 Careful about the Forest 63

5 Ad Astra 83

6 Is Identity a Fiction? 102

7 Pandemic 123

8 Finding Safe Harbor 134

9 Images of Immigrant Experiences 165

10 Two Roads 178

11 Relocation Mysteries 203

Index 231
Foreword

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. The
book is built upon not only his clinical experiences with refugees and
immigrants but also his own family’s stories of immigration. Throughout
the book he reaches many tentative conclusions about which he is not afraid
to remain tentative. And he raises as many questions as he tries to answer.
He is always the keenly sensitive participant witness of himself and others as
he goes in search of the many different faces of the psychology of
immigrants and immigration.
I follow in Dr. Tyminski’s footsteps in choosing the word mosaic to
describe the way in which the book is put together. Tyminski introduces the
term in the context of a discussion about identity:

Postmigration theory conceives of dismantling national labels that

separate and oppress us. These so-called national identities are often
imposed by mechanisms of power to divide human beings from one
another. More likely, we are mosaics, not discrete identities given or
handed to us; and these mosaics are, as Roger Bromley, a professor of
cultural studies, writes, bricolages, a term from cultural anthropology that
means improvised out of what is available, created out of various things.1

Just like Tyminski’s suggestion that the notion of identity itself should give
way to the idea of a mosaic, I suggest that the identity of this book is more
like a bricolage than a straight-line narrative:

1 It follows Tyminski’s inexhaustible curiosity by providing an extensive

survey of the literature on many different aspects of the psychology of
immigration. The references and their careful explications are always
relevant to specific themes.
 Foreword xi

2 It is consistently and refreshingly revealing of the author’s personal

journey through his subject matter.
3 It includes twelve clinical vignettes from Dr. Tyminski’s professional
work that are stunning in their precision, elegance, and sensitivity to his
own and to his patients’ inner and outer lives, often as expressed in the
transference and countertransference.
4 It takes on a broader set of reflections on contemporary themes in
psychotherapy, which include provocative reflections on such topics as
persona, identity, perimeters, mysteries, the uncanny, and the group
skin-ego.
5 It always has in mind the more universal aspects or archetypal
underpinnings on the themes of loss of home, the perils of finding a
new place to call home, and the difficulties of adjusting to that new
home. Virgil’s Aeneid is Tyminski’s archetypal touchstone, but it never
prevents him from seeing the particular, the specific, the local—what
makes each situation and person unique.

In short, this book is at once the record of an academic researcher’s

comprehensive literature review; the accounts of a treating analyst’s clinical
work on themes related to immigration in his private consulting room, as
director of a child and adolescent treatment center, and as a cross-cultural
consultant; multiple narratives from a seasoned lover of the world’s
literature; and finally the journal of a mensch, a real human being, who
suffers empathetically to discover meaning in the suffering of humankind.
I want to comment on two specific topics on which Tyminski offers
original insight: perimeters and identity. Each reflects Tyminski’s opening
the discussion of the psychology of immigration to broader reflections on
our contemporary understanding and use of language to reflect the rapidly
evolving individual and collective psyche of the twenty-first century.
Throughout the book, Tyminski speaks of perimeters rather than
boundaries:

Perimeters are both external demarcations of reality (such as societal

regulations, laws, and national boundaries) and internal representations
that we take from our experiences of them. Perimeters constitute a
paradox about what we absorb from outside and subsequently believe to
have made our own. For most of us, this is as if outer spatial lines wiggle
inside us to then complete psychological puzzles about who we are,
what makes us different, and where we belong. For example, borders
with walls are external perimeters that affect how those on each side
think of themselves and of those on the other side (p. 103).
xii Foreword

This is an interesting shift away from the conventional use of boundaries,

and when I queried him about his preference for perimeters over boundaries,
he answered quite simply:

I think “boundaries” is really dated, and as a term calls to mind various

kinds of psychopathology such as “poor boundaries” or “inadequate
boundaries” … adolescents routinely cross “boundaries” to see what
happens, online and in games and with one another. I came upon
“perimeters” as I thought about labeling, internalization, and the ways
external lines come to categorize any of us. Perimeters seem to point
toward a different idea about describing what gets inside us from outside
and also about conceptualizing aspects of how we think about who we are.

I agree that boundary has come to mean so many different things to different
people, both pejorative as well as prescriptive, that it has lost its precision as a
psychological descriptor. Indeed the term perimeters enables us to see with
fresh eyes what defines us from outside and what we take in as describing the
edges or limits of who we are, depending on who is defining us.
Tyminski sees a similar process occurring with our use of identity. He
even questions if one of our tradition’s most sacred icons and ideas, Erik
Erikson and his notion of identity, may have serious limitations:

A criticism I have of Erikson is that his writing invoked many perimeters

that were explicitly normative for the mainstream, that were bounded by
what wider society deemed acceptable, and that seemingly recommended
adaptation to more conventional values. … I believe that Erikson’s
definition of optimal identity referred primarily to existing safely inside the
comfort of our perimeters, whereas his concept of negative identity meant
being outside them. I don’t believe, however, that being an outsider is
necessarily unhealthy, suboptimal, or disturbed. In my view, these are
dated aspects of Erikson’s theory (p. 118).

Tyminski argues for a far more fluid understanding of how people,

especially younger people, now understand themselves and the world.
Neither boundaries nor identity can be thought of as fixed, as they once
were, and rethinking their use implies a greater sense of experimentation and
exploration. As Tyminski noted: “What I hear from adolescents and young
adults about self-concept nowadays sounds quite different from what I heard
even fifteen years ago. I hear now about playing and experimenting with
who they are in ways that make ‘identity’ seem a bit fossilized.”
In the spirit of amplifying Tyminski’s preferences for the words mosaic
over identity and perimeter over boundary I am reminded of a singular
moment in my development as a Jungian. In 1978 I attended a conference
that featured talks on the relationship between ego and Self by Edward
 Foreword xiii

Edinger, the well-known Jungian analyst, and Mokusen Miyuki, who came
from the eighteenth generation of a Pure Land Jodo Shinshu temple family
and who had also become a Jungian analyst through training in Zurich. After
their formal presentations, an informal group gathered in a circle of chairs to
hear more from each of the presenters. Edinger went first and stood squarely
in the center of the circle and spoke about the ego-Self axis, almost as if he and
the circle around him had become a living embodiment of that notion.
Edinger held the microphone stiffly and did not budge from the center. It was
as if he was the axis, holding firmly to the fixed relationship implied by an axis.
After Edinger spoke, Miyuki took his turn to speak about a more Buddhist/
Jungian notion of the relationship between ego and Self. In stark contrast to
Edinger, Miyuki almost swam around the entire space, encircled by the group
as he spoke about the ever-changing relationships between ego and Self.
Miyuki became a dynamic and fluid representation of how identity changes
with changing environments and relationships. In comparison, Edinger
appeared inflexible and unchanging in his physical embodiment of the ego-
Self axis. The difference in more fixed versus fluid notions became indelibly
embedded in my mind as I was able to visualize in the actual geometry of the
audience and speakers the difference between a more open versus closed
system of understanding the inner and outer movement of ego, Self, and
identity. I suspect that the tension Tyminski notes in the consideration of
specific words to describe psychological phenomena is always subject to a
rhythm between more open and more fixed ways of describing the psyche.
And so too there are surely open and closed systems for describing the
psychology of immigrants and their hosts.
Finally, I would like to comment briefly on the notion of cultural
complexes as it relates to the psychology of immigrants. Cultural complexes
can lock both immigrants and their hosts in stereotypical modes of
understanding themselves and one another with automatic, reactive
emotional landmines that prefer simplistic black-and-white thinking and
the collection of self-affirming memories that reinforce the complex. The
transit to a more open state of mind is as old and arduous as Aeneas’s
journey in The Aeneid and as new as the most recent immigrants arriving on
the shores of the United States and other lands around the world. Robert
Tyminski takes us on that journey with an uncanny sense of mystery and a
wonderfully open mind, heart, and soul.

Thomas Singer

Note
1 Wikipedia, s.v. “Bricolage,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bricolage; Roger Bromley, “A
Bricolage of Identifications: Storying Postmigrant Belonging,” Journal of Aesthetics &
Culture 9, no. 2 (2017): 37.
Acknowledgments

From Virgil, we have a Latin phrase mirabile dictu.1 It roughly means

wonderful to say or tell. These acknowledgments are wonderful to tell you, the
reader, about. Many people from various walks of my life contributed to this
book through the kindness of sharing their stories with me. Because I have
been able to travel, I could go to different places and stay for a while when I
wanted to learn more. That has been a privilege that most migrants don’t
have. In that way, I’ve been fortunate. And because of that, I’ve tried to keep
in mind the vastly different stories that immigrants and refugees have to tell.
I want to thank the patients in my practice who are immigrants and told me
about their experiences with immigration. These stories were often difficult to
tell because of the emotional pain they were associated with. I hope that their
retelling has helped them form new meanings for what they have gone
through. A central goal of analysis and psychotherapy is to alleviate mental
suffering and reduce the intensity and scope of difficult emotions—I hope that
this happened for those who were and are in my care. I have disguised
identifying information in the cases I report in this book.
I want to acknowledge and thank the staff and clients at the Frei Center
in Berlin, Germany, for opening their doors to me. I admire their work and
the fortitude of the refugees in their care. I thank my German friend
Norbert Hänsler, who helped arrange this visit.
The Journal of Analytical Psychology printed original material in
Chapters 2 and 4 and gave me permission to reuse it for this book. Jung
Journal: Culture & Psyche printed the article on which Chapter 6 is based.
These professional journals are lifelines for analysts and psychotherapists
because they help us to learn and see ourselves in a wider community.
I thank all the respondents to the study about immigration images that is
the heart of Chapter 9 Their openness in replying helped to unravel many
archetypal aspects of imagery that endures for immigrants after their
resettlement. Special thanks to Marc Van Der Hout who let me interview
him about his career as an immigration attorney in the United States.
The list of those who have encouraged my writing and taught me to write
better is long. Mirabile dictu. John Beebe has been a terrific mentor and
 Acknowledgments xv

always pointed me in a better direction than the one I was moving toward.
Others are Susan Calfee, Joe Cambray, Linda Carter, Elaine Cooper, Diane
Deutsch, Tom Kelly, Phil Moore, Jeffrey Moulton Benevedes, Sam Naifeh,
Katherine Olivetti, David Sedgwick, Dyane Sherwood, Ellen Siegelman,
Tom Singer, Charlie Stewart, Til Stewart, Susan Thackrey, Dennis Turner,
Marcus West, and Susanna Wright. They have read drafts, commented on
half-finished essays, encouraged me to dig deeper, and told me when
something wasn’t ready. These are gifts of friendship and collegiality for
which I am very grateful.
My copy editor for this and my other books is LeeAnn Pickrell. She has
been excellent at bringing a trained eye to details that I would probably not
see; she’s made numerous suggestions for improving text that dragged on or
was confusing. I count myself lucky to be able to work with her. I am
thankful for having a great editor at Routledge, Susannah Frearson, who has
seen promise in my ideas.
I have had encouragement and support from many friends through writing
this book. Lauren Cunningham, Gordon Murray, and Susan Williams offered
space for ideas to hatch and see how they might develop. My friends Hope
Selinger and Kim Hettena have read drafts of my writing and offered
thoughtful commentary. My friend Mary Brady is a delight to share ideas with
and to think together about possibilities. Our collaboration always enriches
my life and brings me deeper meanings. Her late husband, Carey Cole, was a
terrific friend, a keen observer, and wise counselor.
My friend Candia Smith is a wonderful supporter of me and my writing.
I feel blessed to have her in my life. Her sharp mind brings clarity to many
questions a writer about psychology faces. My appreciation extends to her
husband Jon Winge for his kindness, humor, and surprising intuitions.
My yoga group has been in my life for decades now. Our teacher, Barbara
Wiechmann, creates a wonderful space for us to discover how to be
healthier. She is a friend whose love and guidance have shaped me. Our yoga
group has had many participants who are immigrants to the United States,
and many have become friends.
I would not have written this book were it not for my family. Our
immigration background has been a source of inspiration in my adult life,
and I wish we had more openly embraced it when I was a child and teenager.
Grandparents on both sides had stories to tell about migration, and these
often did not get shared in much detail. My aunt Jane Fitch helped fill in
missing parts about my Polish grandparents and what life was like for her
and her ten siblings, my father among them, growing up on a farm in
Upstate New York. Her daughter, my cousin Donna Holliday, facilitated
my contacting Aunt Jane who was in her late nineties. I am lucky to have
spoken with her before she passed away in January 2021. My cousin Marilyn
Baker shows curiosity about my writing and has been enthusiastic about it.
My cousins Kathy Abruzzese, Janet Cormier, and Cheryl Tyminski are
xvi Acknowledgments

relatives whose love is simply given, not measured. We have shared many
helpful conversations about family and the past, keeping stories alive. My
cousin in Poland, Teresa Tarnawska, provided me with valuable information
about our family’s Polish genealogy. I extend many thanks to all these family
members.
For financial support, I want to thank the trustees of the Kristine Mann
Library in New York City for a grant that helped me with the study in
Chapter 9 I also want to thank the Scholarship Committee of the C. G.
Jung Institute of San Francisco for a grant to assist me with other parts of
my research. The librarians at the University of California, San Francisco,
were super at helping to track down the occasional obscure journal article
that I had to read.
My husband is the immigrant who has affected me most and opened my
eyes to many things I knew only at the surface. Gady’s parents were Romanian
Holocaust survivors who immigrated to the young state of Israel and built a
life there. Years later, Gady came to the United States to study Oral Medicine,
and after we met, he decided to stay here. Like with many immigrants, his
story had uncertainties to it. I am profoundly thankful he found a way to stay
for both of us. And I have much gratitude that his love probably makes me a
better writer—and definitely a better person. Mirabile dictu.

Note
1 Virgil, The Aeneid, trans. John Dryden (Project Gutenberg E-Book #228, 2008), 49;
Robert Fitzgerald, trans., The Aeneid by Virgil (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), 19.
Credits List

The author also gratefully acknowledges permission to republish the

following material:

Tyminski, R. (2020) ‘Is Identity a Fiction?’ Jung Journal, 14(2). Reprinted with
permission © 2020 Taylor and Francis Ltd., http://www.tandfonline.com.

Tyminski, R. (2019) ‘Just Black Sometimes’, Part 2: Reflections on an

Adolescent’s Journey. J Anal Psychol, 64: 386–405. https://doi.org/10.1111/
1468-5922.12504. Reprinted with permission © 2019 John Wiley & Sons,
Inc. on behalf of the Society of Analytical Psychology.

Tyminski, R. (2018) ‘Just Black Sometimes’: Analytic Tools Applied at the

Frontlines of Social Upheaval, Part 1 J Anal Psychol, 63: 619–640. https://
doi.org/10.1111/1468-5922.12448. Reprinted with permission © 2018
John Wiley & Sons, Inc. on behalf of the Society of Analytical Psychology.