Dissertation Oral Defenses

This exploratory research conceived as ceremony makes an effort to rupture dominant narratives oppressing our exploration and meaning making of the universal lived experience that is called death.  In modern society, hegemony, commodification of the sacred, and the medicalization of an otherwise organic human unfolding contribute to the perception of a false separation in our…

This study utilizes interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) and derives meaning from the lived experiences of 5 alcoholic women with over 20 years sober from alcohol and attending Alcoholics Anonymous. Semi-structured interview questions are coded to expose themes detailing early childhood experiences, consequences related to drinking, the sense of self, and the search for wholeness. A…

Childhood sexual assault impacts individuals in the most intimate of ways and is considered one of the most destructive forms of trauma an individual can endure. Clinicians and researchers alike have acknowledged a range of physical, psychobiological, and spiritual outcomes related to childhood sexual abuse. Spiritually, sexual abuse can be so annihilating it has been…

The sleep paralysis nightmare is universally reported across cultures, from antiquity to modernity. Those who experience nocturnal assaults by demons, succubae, hags, and dark entities attribute them to evil spirits with various degrees of malevolence. Most report the experience as terrifying, overwhelming, mysterious and uncanny. Known in the neurocognitive literature as “isolated sleep paralysis” (ISP),…

This dissertation employs a hermeneutic methodology and a Jungian lens to examine the idea of golf as occupying liminal space. In anthropology, liminality is the transformative space in rites of initiation. In depth psychology psychic transformation occurs in liminal space. This study extends the concept to five loci of liminality: geography, history, the evolution of…

This critical hermeneutic case study of the Occupy movement and Occupy Portland considers indicators of cultural change and new social imaginary significations through the lenses of bodily relations to place and depth psychology’s psychoanalytic tradition. In Occupy, the convening power of mass self-communication technologies allowed the substitution of organizing properties of place for organizational capital…

This dissertation utilizes the archetypal and symbolic image of the Crone as a way to imagine and integrate present-day depth psychotherapy as a model for the treatment of stuck-ness. The Greek myth of Demeter is used as a mythical and archetypal background to explore the inclusion of the analytic third (Ogden, 1985, 1994, 2010) as…

This work is based on the belief that human beings need to feel that their lives have meaning, and at death to feel a sense of continuance. To experience these feelings, it is often essential to face our mortality and psychologically prepare for death. Symbolic immortality is one way to experience these feelings of meaning…

Common principles, or threads, are studied that are readily found in both spiritual traditions (including religion) and in the field of sustainability. Oneness, Living Simply, Purity, and Care and Heart are examined at length, while Awakening, Awe and Wonder, and Preservation of Life are covered briefly. Opposite principles—for example, Oneness versus Fracturedness, and Purity versus…

A cosmological view of the Jungian Self and psyche clarifies the ways that the symbolic language of astrology translates elements of one’s personal myth. This hermeneutic inquiry aims to offer a deeper understanding of the process of individuation by understanding nebulous archetypes of the unconscious through the framework of astrology. A Jungian methodology, close reading…

This hermeneutic phenomenological study explores the role of the sacred in engendering the courage to be embodied in adult survivors of severe sexual abuse. It adopts an interdisciplinary approach to depth psychology and mystical theology that utilizes the theories of D. W. Winnicott, C. G. Jung, and T. Merton to illuminate the dynamics of embodiment…

This dissertation endeavors to explore and describe the lived experience of music therapists’ relationships with their clients as it develops in individual music therapy sessions. Music therapy literature, reviewed with particular attention to its treatment of the psychodynamic conceptualization of clinical relationship, suggests a shaky marriage between music therapy and psychoanalytic thought, and the experience…

This dissertation is an exploration of the field in psychoanalytic research methodology aimed toward increasing understanding of unconscious processes that develop between researchers and their research topic. In this study, recent psychoanalytic research is discussed with an exploration of the research methods utilized. The methods used are then discussed in the context of the “circle…

Lebanese women face discrimination and injustice as shaped by their society’s overall values, beliefs, and identities. The purpose of this qualitative critical ethnography was to explore the Lebanese cultural unconscious, including cultural memory and communicative memory; and second, to inspire community transformation and social change to respond to the needs of women who have been…

This dissertation focuses on Thomas Mann’s Joseph and His Brothers and addresses the following questions: what does Mann’s novel have to offer to the field of comparative mythology and how might this biblical retelling be relevant for contemporary readers? One approach the dissertation takes in addressing these questions is examining the novel’s relationship to the…

This research is about revisioning the Feminine; this is an exploration into the depth of image, alchemy, intentional creativity, and the catalytic role they play in psychic and somatic integration. Hekate was identified as an image of the dark Feminine that invoked fear in Western culture. For this reason Hekate was selected for interpretation for…

“MANIFEST: A Sado/masochistic Mythography of Masculinities” explores intersections of gender and divinity in a mythographic realm designated as the “Sado/masochistic terrain,” a framework useful to analyze power dynamics integral to discussions about masculinities. Aspects of Sado/masochistic relationships exhibited between divine and mortal beings, in guru/disciple relationships, and amongst consenting adults in bondage subcultures speak to…

Globally, seventy million people identify as Irish. This dissertation examines the global phenomenon of Irish identity in the Irish and Irish diaspora. The theoretical research applies an interdisciplinary approach including, mythological studies, depth psychology, phenomenology, somatic studies, geography, thanatology, history, and sociocultural structures to explore give voice to the experience of Irish identity. Utilizing a…

The superhero and superheroine in American culture are powerful symbols representing the society, its flaws, strengths, and redemptive qualities. American comic books and the characters within the mythological narratives are therapeutic because they enhance our understanding of ourselves and our daily lives. These heroic figures are mythically relevant and powerful to the culture in which…

This research presents an intimate exploration of the stories of survivors of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda. A phenomenological approach was used in the research, employing the lens of depth psychology emphasizing community psychology, liberation psychology, and ecopsychology. Through organic inquiry, a semi-structured interview process was engaged in which survivors recalled their…