Dissertation Oral Defenses

This research investigated the potential for healing grief within Winnicott’s transitional or potential space, constellated within the therapeutic container, by utilizing physical objects left behind after the loss of a significant other. The study employed a qualitative narrative research approach in gathering data on two participants who were grieving the loss of a loved one…

For centuries Western sensibilities have been governed by an assumption that imagination is an exclusively human faculty, independent of the phenomenal world. This dissertation explores a view, long elaborated in mythologies and artistic traditions of pre-modern cultures, that phenomenal reality is the template of imagination, that terrestrial and celestial elemental forces are continuous with the…

This study explores how analytic Jungian psychology in dialogue with the myth of Persephone and Hades and the Hellenistic Mystery religions expand our knowledge of the intrapsychic and interpsychic processes that arise when marital couples live with mysticism. The research defines mysticism as an internal–introspective and social–contextual process involving transformative practices, self-transcendence, and consciousness of…

This qualitative phenomenological study explored the experiences of people with relational trauma in NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM), a somatically based psychotherapy. Utilizing an interdisciplinary approach of depth psychotherapy, neuroscience, attachment, and somatic therapy, the literature review examined the multifaceted impact of relational trauma and the mechanisms of implicit memory and somatic psychotherapy. The literature review…

Art serves many purposes in Western society; however, its most profound contributions are largely being forgotten. Today’s artists are confronted by two dominant trends; the first proposes that anything may be called art, that everyone may create “art.” The second trend would restrict art to an increasingly elite realm of insiders and specialists. Both directions,…

Despite thirty years’ of research findings demonstrating gender-symmetry in heterosexual Partner Abuse (also known as domestic violence), the criminal justice system, treatment profession, social safety net and the media rarely acknowledge that female-on-male Partner Abuse (PA) is as serious an issue as male-on-female Partner Abuse, or, more critically, an issue at all. This misandrist bias…

This study argues that the veneration, romanticization and projection of the feminine in depth psychology is problematic. Depth psychology claims that the masculine and feminine principles exist as archetypes in the collective unconscious. It also claims that these principles are not attached to men and women, yet it coopts imagery that represents the principles in…

This inquiry follows several threads: Adolescence as an archeytpal complex; manifestations of trauma and countertransferential responses in the alternative high school classroom; and resistances to self-transformation, the hallmark of heuristic self-search inquiry. Guiding questions address the necessary, ethical, and compassionate practice of honoring a mythopoetic approach and the imaginal field in the alternative high school…

It began disguised as the personal myth Julia had concocted for herself. Let me press this further. What it was, what it is, and the idea of what the inquiry will become along the way back into our world is a response to the specific questions life has addressed to Julia and her “houses of…

Two of the hallmark symptoms for psychoses are hallucinations and delusions, indicating to mental health practitioners that the person is experiencing a form of nonconsensual reality. These patients are not given the same opportunities to collaborate in the planning for their treatment as those who are being treated for other conditions. Psychosis is a condition…

Earthly paradise and its lost have fascinated humanity from the dawn of time. Indeed, the myth of earthly paradise is found throughout the world, and the longing for life in paradise is basic to every human being. The term paradise was first used in ancient Persia where it meant a walled garden. Thus paradise is…

Peace psychology was recognized by the American Psychological Association (APA) as a specialty area of psychology in 1990. This research study analyses the past 25 years of peace psychologists’ efforts as the Society of Peace, Conflict, and Violence: Peace Psychology Division 48 of the APA (Division 48). Today the field has grown to include an…

Treatment of addictive processes is one of the specialties of clinical psychology. Practitioners hone their skills to relieve the suffering and ill effects of substance use. This dissertation explored sugar use, as an addictive process, through the lens of emotional regulation, addressing the research question: What is the lived experience of emotional regulation through sugar…

This hermeneutic study explores the literary landscapes of epic myth and depth psychology to illuminate the Greek Gorgon Medusa as an autonomous figure of myth. Her archetypal symbolism represents a foundational substrate for the West’s relation to and understanding of the feminine. This study asks what aspects of the archetypal feminine are denigrated and demonized…

This dissertation provides a theoretical, archetypal, and imaginal approach to integrating psyche and soma through the development and design of a distinctive movement praxis rooted in mythology, the Mythic Movement Practice. This proposed movement model is composed of eight Signature Moves that are based on the eight Effort Actions of Rudolf Laban’s Action Drive, as…

In our contemporary scientific exploration of reality there is heated debate on the nature of consciousness. Comparing the representations of consciousness in the depth psychology of Carl Jung and the Classical Yoga of Patañjali contributes to the argument on whether consciousness arises from psychic process or whether consciousness is the ground of Being. In Patañjali’s…

Adolescents and therapist professional development are two areas in psychological literature that have remained relatively untouched for more than 20 years. Research provides evidence that many adolescents suffer from mental health issues, such as depression and anxiety; yet there is a lack of appropriate care. Much of the research on adolescents and therapists who work…

This hermeneutic study with a depth psychological perspective explores Latvian traditional mythological legends using a close reading/active imagination methodology. It interprets the supernatural beings of the legends as images of the Shadow archetype that concern the legend tellers’ challenging experiences with material wealth and their sense of worthiness. The study is an important contribution to…

This dissertation explores the impact of awakening to the sacred feminine both in the researcher and in the members of Amalurra, an intentional community in the Basque Country of Spain. The intention of awakening to the sacred feminine triggered a process of descent into the depths of the participants’ personal unconscious through which they made…

Who was Sabina Spielrein? Clearly, with the release of the recent (2011) film, A Dangerous Method, the story of Sabina Spielrein is still stirring in collective consciousness, though the scope has been greatly limited. Outside of the current cultural trend of presenting Spielrein solely as C. G. Jung’s patient and/or mistress, relatively little is written…