Dissertation Oral Defenses

This hermeneutic study explores new avenues of depth psychological understanding pertaining to the relationship between lunar symbolism and the psyche. This relationship is grounded in a study of myth, particularly Greek myth, which guides the amplification of the moon as a symbol of critical strata and dynamics of the collective unconscious. Jungian and archetypal psychological…

Qualitative depth psychological research was conducted in Ecuador, SA, to identify overt conscious-intentional and hidden unconscious-archetypal motivations that influenced the decisions for self-initiated expatriation (SIE) from North America and Europe to a country considered paradisiac for SIE.  Using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) with a multilayered Jungian approach, results of five months of live interviews with…

This study examined the lived embodied experience of Argentine Tango as it pertains to habitual patterns of interpersonal relating. An interpretive phenomenological approach (IPA) was adopted to investigate how six participants made sense of their embodied experiences. Semi-structured in-depth interviews focused on dance encounters and one-of-a-kind moments related to the phenomenon. The intersubjective experience formed…

The purpose of this alchemical hermeneutic inquiry is to explore the image of ice through multiple media as it coalesces around C. G. Jung’s The Red Book: Liber Novus, a text which was published in our current era of climate crisis. Using the lenses of depth and archetypal psychology, this dissertation amplifies the archetypal core…

Death by suicide is a problem of epidemic proportions in the United States of America. In 2018, 50,351 people died by suicide, ranking the United States 27th in the world for suicide rates (Suicide Rates, p. 1). Nationwide, Black females have historically had the lowest suicide rates across any other culture, race, sex, ethnicity, and…

This depth psychology research interprets the deep and vast territory of self-meanings in the woman’s connection with the fetus, known as the prenatal attachment experience. This process is unique to each woman and may gradually unfold or suddenly arise to protect a woman’s ego from turmoil during the natural course of development. Led by the…

After he began his confrontation with the unconscious, but before he started work in the red leather-bound volume regarded as The Red Book: Liber Novus, C. G. Jung argued with an inner female voice. In the argument he declared that what he was doing was not art but nature. To probe Jung’s perceived gap between…

Epics capture the imagination of the public, occupying significant space in the collective unconscious and offering the opportunity for many to identify with various themes and images in those narratives. With teaching, criticism, and interpretations of canonical works sometimes spanning centuries, as is the case with Dante’s Divine Comedy, or Commedia, these works become such…

Silence can be a useful tool for psychotherapists, and meditative silence can assist clients to understand and come to terms with their mental health. Silence, and specifically meditative silence, remains under-investigated in the psychological literature. Guru and Indian spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar presented Buddhist and Hindu traditions in his writings and teachings on…

The problem of an egocentric underworld or unconscious engagement is presented in both mythology and psychology through examples of imbalance that leads to destructive outcomes. This dissertation ventures into the realm of the underworld and the unconscious by following solar-cycle mythologies and discovers correlating psychological and artistic framework and methodology vital for fostering a creative…

The purpose of this research was to learn more about the embodied experience of riding a motorcycle, and to produce a phenomenological description of the shared and significant features of the experience.  Thus, the central question of this research asked, “What is the embodied experience of motorcycle riding?”  A small group of seasoned riders were…

Qualitative interpretive phenomenological analysis was used to explore the phenomenon of synchronicity and its emergence within the process of death and dying. The impact of synchronicity was analyzed in correlation with death and its relationship to Western modernity’s cultural, psychological, and societal substructures. Semistructured interviews were conducted with six palliative care nurses who work closely…

This is a quantitative, Chi-Square study into the possible relationship between negative experiences, such as discrimination and humiliation, and the likelihood of seeking mental health services by Mexican monolingual Spanish-speakers. Sixty participants, 40 monolingual and 20 bilingual, selected randomly from three different locations in the Coachella Valley, completed a demographic profile which included experiences of…

Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood is a text full of rich symbolism, a metaphoric landscape which is best understood using an integration of literary and depth psychological hermeneutics. Applying an anagogical framework to the novel, an interpretive approach meant to reveal spiritual meaning, makes it possible to see through the world of O’Connor’s Taulkinham, the fictional…

The phenomenon of countertransference has been a topic of controversy since its introduction during the early 1900s. Over the past century, the meaning and understanding of countertransference have evolved, as countertransference has evolved from being considered an obstacle to treatment brought on by the analyst’s unconscious conflicts to being understood as a way of communicating…

Jealousy is typically understood as destructive and to be avoided. This research examined jealousy within polyamory, a relationship situation which virtually guarantees it must be dealt with openly and directly. Lived experiences of jealousy and polyamory were explored through interpretative phenomenological analysis from a depth psychological perspective. Jealousy was understood by participants normal, typical, and…

Children of immigrants are often called upon to interpret and translate language and cultural information for their parents and other adults in their lives in a process called language brokering. Using an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, the experiences of five female Iranian Language brokers were explored to understand the meanings these women made of their lived…

This dissertation examines perspectives on reincarnation from Hindu, Buddhist, Greek, early Christian, and Gnostic traditions as well as Western Hermeticism and Theosophy. While these views differ in significant respects, I argue that the purpose of reincarnation is to enable a soul to gradually improve or evolve through a series of lifetimes. The study asks three…

This depth psychological study explored the effects of embodied imagination dream work (Bosnak, et. al.) on participant dreamers’ felt connections with nature. The intuitive inquiry hermeneutic research applied theoretical lenses of archetypal psychology (Hillman) and Indigenous knowledge (Deloria, Cajete, Kimmerer) to examine themes that emerged out of eight individual dream work sessions, guided by the…

Mythobiogenesis seeks the origin of myth, religion, and ritual not only in the vastness of human history, but in the confining nucleus of a human cell. This place of origin is by no means obvious and we refer to it simply as a “trysting place,” the secret rendezvous of mind and body. Data in support…