The harmonics are a mathematical construct of the Fourier series
You have some complex repeated, unchanging wave form at some single frequency, $f$. That's all you have: one weird wave form, one frequency. No overtones, no harmonocs, nothing...
However, suppose you decide to approximate the weird wave form by combining sine and cosine waves. You decide to try using sine and cosine waves with the same phase as the weird wave form, and with frequencies of $f$, $2f$, $3f$, and so on. (You could always try some other wave form, I'm guessing?)
Fourier says that you can always select amplitudes for these sine and cosine waves such that your approximation gets better and better as you add more and more terms.
So now you can analyze how your weird wave form behaves in any situation by analyzing how each of the sine and cosine waves are affected...
Note also that "shifted phase harmonics" are already mathematically included in the standard Fourier Series:$$A\sin(nf)+B\cos(nf)=\sqrt{(A^2+B^2)}\sin(nF+p)$$ $$\text{where }\tan(p)=\frac{B}{A}$$