Dissertation Oral Defenses
Clinical research that examines the lived experiences of first-generation Mexican American women growing up in America, is a topic that is minimally discussed. As a professional Latina woman working in the field of clinical psychology, I became increasingly aware of this unspoken phenomenon through my interactions with other Latinas in a professional, academic, and clinical…
For over twenty years, former Commander Jon Burge of the Chicago Police Department used methods of torture to coerce confessions from men and women of color on the South Side of Chicago. With the cooperation of the state’s attorney’s office and the courts, over 100 people of color were sentenced to prison, some even to…
This study was conducted to increase the understanding and explore the value of combined somatic and artistic approaches for healing trauma. The Personal Embodiment program offered at the Tamalpa Institute, which utilizes somatic and expressive arts methods, was the proposed therapeutic model. Using a depth psychological perspective, the literature review examined theoretical formulations in the…
This research explores the nature of the transcendent function in the context of personal myth as it is illuminated by one’s astrological profile, using active imagination to engage directly with the planetary archetypes around the primary tensions and archetypal themes that characterize the individual’s life experience, in order to cultivate a closer relationship between the…
The Whore of Babylon is a diabolical female figure in the Book of Revelation, the final book of the canonical Bible. Throughout history this image has been used metaphorically to communicate a threat. The focus on the Whore as a woman and mother infuses the female body with apocalyptic significance and reinforces stereotypical gender roles.…
Research bridging psychodrama and Jungian psychology has not looked at the role of the sacred, numinous, and the unitary nature of reality in the theory and practice of Jung and Moreno. This qualitative hermeneutic inquiry utilized imaginal and depth psychological approaches to explore psychodrama and Jungian psychology. Alchemy provided the sacred and transformational framework in…
Universal Self is an archetype in which there is reciprocal correspondence between individual and universe. A pragmatic research design grounded in the hermeneutic tradition of inquiry is used to explore Universal Self from the perspective of Ancient Egypt by synthesizing historical texts with contemporary art and science. A heart devoted to Gods and Goddesses, and…
Ever since the Enlightenment, the educated classes of Western civilization have experienced an increasingly unbridgeable gulf between faith in a transcendent spiritual reality and faith in natural science. The source of the divide appears to spring from our internal experience as knowing subjects influencing, or being influenced by, external objects and events. Various metaphysical solutions…
This hermeneutic research uses a depth psychological perspective to evaluate four texts that describe approaches to working with the phenomena of hoarding and with persons who hoard. The texts are similar in that they reject use of the shame-inducing word hoarder. Although they avoid explicitly addressing the causes of hoarding, each text considers the role…
This study adds to the postmodern Jungian canon of literary studies through a hermeneutic examination of Toni Wolff’s (1951/1956) essay, “Structural Forms of the Feminine Psyche,” using an interdisciplinary methodology that includes close reading from literary theory studies and Jungian literary analysis. Wolff’s material has been limited to woman’s psychology rather than seen as an…
This research explores the intersection of mass incarceration, ecopedagogies, and liberation pedagogy. A gardening and food skills course, using liberation pedagogy and ecopedagogies for curriculum design, was implemented at a transitional home for recently incarcerated men. The study sought to understand the impact of the curriculum on participants using a qualitative research approach. Narrative data…
More than any of his other archetypal forms, C. G. Jung’s conception of the shadow has found a permanent place within popular culture. But whether it manifests bodily as a shadow-figure or permeates the conscious world in the form of a shadow-realm, the Jungian shadow is presumed to be a negative and even sinister archetypal…
This study involves Jewish survivors of the Sho’ah, the attempted extinction of the Jews during the Holocaust. Significant research has been conducted on the Holocaust; however, the research on one’s experiences of trauma and storytelling, one’s ability to tell their story, and the experience of being heard while doing so, is an understudied subject. This…
C. G. Jung never published his painted opus, The Red Book, or the art-based methodology that he learned in creating it, instead teaching this process to his advanced patients in analysis. Yet, “despite the fact” that he “so often travelled this path with individual patients,” Jung (1933) lamented that he had not “succeeded in making…
The purpose of this study is to historically analyze the history of the industrial food system and the impact on the image of the keeper of the hearth from a Depth Ecopsychological perspective. It will start with a critical analysis of the history of the industrial food system, exploring the changes it made on western…
Perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs) are a common occurrence for women from the time of conception throughout the first year of their children’s lives. However, often this disorder goes undetected and mothers’ do not seek treatment, citing the existence of many systemic barriers that both prevent and deter them from reaching out for help…
Many clinicians have referred to narcissists as among those difficult to treat for a variety of complex reasons. Simultaneously, individuals with a harsh inner critic can also have difficulty in treatment as they work to silence or accept the existence of such an inner judgmental voice. Shame affects both narcissists and individuals who experience inner…
In 1614, Count Palatine Michael Maier published Arcana Arcanissima, the Most Secret Mysteries in which he analyzes mythological stories through an alchemical lens to discover the Christian truths which they hold. This text is referenced throughout scholarship on Maier, but no one has translated it into English. Maier is famous for works such as the…
Grounded in the psychology of C. G. Jung and James Hillman, this dissertation looks to classical Greek mythology in order to explore how the descents and ascents in underworld journeys personify archetypal styles of experiencing the unconscious. In psychological terms, the descent and ascent motif is a metaphor for ego-consciousness contacting the unconscious. Put more…
West African immigrants are the largest group of African immigrants in the United States. However, there has not been much research focusing on this increasingly growing group of immigrants. The purpose of this qualitative interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) research was to explore acculturation related mental health stressors among recent West African Immigrants in Southern California.…
