This presentation is aimed to enrich psychoanalytic theory by exploring how societal and historical factors shape generational experiences in different contexts. Each generation grows up in a specific cultural, social, and historical context, which influences their values, beliefs, and psychological challenges. In these regards generation Z in general has been characterized as an environmentally aware “digital natives” who are exposed to a rapidly changing and increasingly interconnected world. Despite these common characteristics, cultural determinants shape Zoomers’ early experiences, socialization patterns, and the formation of their self-identity. Psychoanalytic perspectives in this presentation will explore how context-specific traditional cultural norms and values are internalized and operate within Zoomers’ unconscious processes, and also tries to uncover these unconscious dynamics and explain their interplay with cultural factors.

Presenter: Anna M. Kudiyarova, PhD, Director of the Psychoanalytic Institute for Central Asia