Shame, Temporality and Social Change: Ominous Transitions

Winner of the Internationl Association for Jungian Studies (IAJS) Book Award for Best Edited Book 2021

There is a broad consensus that we are in a time of profound transition. There is worldwide political and social turbulence, with an underlying loss of hope and confidence about the future. Technological change and the stresses of late-stage capitalism, along with climate change, undermine social trust and hope for a future worth living. Shameless behavior is rampant, undermining respect for habits and institutions that hold societies together. Shame, Temporality and Social Change offers multi-disciplinary insight into these concerns.

Hinton and Willemsen’s collection covers themes including racism, cultural norms, memory and vulnerability, with examinations of shame at its core. It explores the meaning and significance of shame in a world of social media, autocratic leaders and algorithms and what we can learn from myth as we progress. Increased awareness of the inter-connection of shame and temporality with the ominous transitions of our times provides thought-provoking insights for theory and practice and the ethical decisions of everyday life.

Psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, philosophers, anthropologists and academics and students engaged in cultural studies and critical theory will gain valuable insights from this book’s rich and engaging variety of perspectives on our times.

Ladson Hinton, MA, MD is a psychoanalyst who lives, practices and teaches in Seattle. He is a founding member of the New School for Analytical Psychology. The volume Temporality and Shame: Perspectives from Psychoanalysis and Philosophy, co-edited with Hessel Willemsen, won the prize of the American Board & Academy of Psychology and Psychoanalysis for books published in 2018.　

Hessel Willemsen, DClinPsych is a Training and Supervising analyst with the Society of Analytical Psychology in London, a member of the New School of Analytical Psychology. He lives, practises and teaches in central London.