Dissertation Oral Defenses

This research explores the cultural constructions surrounding autism that have endured since autism’s original inclusion in the DSM in 1980. Primarily, this hermeneutic study intended to address how the legacy of such constructs has influenced research and treatment, and how it may have impacted autistic individuals’ internalized sense of self. This study analyzed three texts…

This dissertation explores the role of Black and Indigenous women as ecological stewards through an arts-based, eco-poetic, and storytelling-centered inquiry grounded in indigenous, community, liberation, ecopsychological, and depth psychological frameworks. It addresses the erasure of Black and Indigenous women’s ancestral and contemporary relationships with Mother Earth by reclaiming narratives, memories, and healing practices passed through…

Terrapsychological Inquiry is a depth psychological research methodology applying principles of ecopsychology to the study of the relationship between person and place. In the current study, I apply the methodological explorations of Terrapsychological Inquiry to the place of Mount Forest Island in Illinois to better understand its ecological and characterological essence. This exploration includes an…

This theoretical dissertation examined the QAnon conspiracy theory as a psychological manifestation of an exiled religious function seeking expression through alternative mythological structures. Through a depth psychological hermeneutic lens, it investigated how religious fundamentalism’s control of numinous experience creates psychological conditions wherein archetypal content emerges in distorted and compensatory forms. The research analyzed QAnon imagery,…

This dissertation offers a non-prejudicial exploration of Satanism within the field of depth psychology, positing that this spiritual path of psychological individuation is not merely a misguided pursuit but an ongoing experimental odyssey with the Satanist’s psyche. To facilitate this alternative reading, the study employs the language of alchemy as a means to objectively characterize…

This dissertation explores the potential of psychedelic-assisted therapy to facilitate healing from complex post-traumatic stress disorder rooted in childhood trauma. Utilizing a blended qualitative approach that integrates heuristic and hermeneutic methodologies, the study examines how psychedelic-assisted therapy can address the psychological, somatic, and existential impacts of early relational wounding. Drawing from depth psychology, trauma studies,…

As people move through diaspora, food travels with them—carrying cultural meaning, memory, and relation. This study asked: How do traditional food practices among Indigenous, Mexican, and Jewish diasporic people living in the United States help preserve collective memory, identity, and cultural survivance amid displacement? The subquestions examined foodways through four lenses: as relational onto-epistemologies; as…

This qualitative study explores the lived experience of six mothers who utilized natural practices for mental health healing in postpartum. As a response to Western psychology’s reliance on clinical practices that uphold the mind–body split, the purpose of this research was to gain insight into the lived experience of mothers who used natural practices for…

A range of literature has been reviewed encompassing mental health and current practices emphasized in treatment models that primarily employ evidence-based, medical, and manualized approaches. Depth-oriented research using music-based interventions, along with music psychotherapy literature, is presented to contextualize music psychotherapy centered, creative arts therapy experiences. There is a lack of depth-oriented research on the…

This study explores the multifaceted challenges and experiences of a first-generation, bisexual, Latino doctoral student navigating academia within a predominantly White institution. The research employs an autoethnographic approach to delve into the intersections of ethnic identity, sexual orientation, and first-generation status and how these elements influence the experience of trauma, representation, and belonging in higher…

This qualitative study explores the lived experience of the numinous in therapy, asking how attuning to the mystical dimension can help embody and integrate numinous experience. Grounded in interpretive phenomenological research and Jungian perspectives, the study employs a case study methodology, adding a mystical lens and heuristic elements. Data is drawn from therapists’ published case…

Many Indigenous cultures view synchronicities as the voice of the cosmos borne of sacred reciprocity between all living beings. In 1925, founder of analytic psychology, C. G. Jung first encountered this concept while meeting a Pueblo elder in Taos, New Mexico. In 1951, Jung assimilated synchronicity into Western scientific thinking with the publication, “On Synchronicity,”…

Alchemical hermeneutics provides a transformative perspective, illuminating the psychological conflict between self-deception and individuation. The research finds that by exploring archetypal energies of the Shadow, Trickster, Lover, Warrior, and Sage obstacles are revealed affecting personal development while negotiating the complex terrain of love and betrayal. The dissertation discusses the archetypal and developmental effects of the…

This dissertation explored the psychological, cultural, and existential crises that face modern American men, particularly White, heterosexual, cisgender males, through the lens of depth psychology. It examined the ways in which the archetypal masculine (phallos) and the systemic forces of patriarchy shape—and often distort—male identity in the 21st century. As patriarchal structures wane, many men…

Utilizing Jungian theories of individuation as a critical perspective, this qualitative depth psychological study researched the distorting influence of the American cultural complex of individualism on psychospiritual development, with a focus on the exaggerated split between the individual and the community and its manifestations in the American psyche. Specifically, this research inquired into how the…

This study explores the lived experiences of six women diagnosed with fibromyalgia before and after a treatment with psilocybin. Through a mixed-methods framework, which includes the analysis of qualitative narratives using the Listening Guide Method paired with quantitative assessment measures, this research demonstrates the potential of psilocybin to support significant improvements in experiences of chronic…

This dissertation introduces the Nommo Gates of Healing, a new Afro-Indigenous framework created by Lakeisha A. Lucas, designed to address intergenerational trauma and post- traumatic slave syndrome (PTSS) experienced by Ojiji children, Black foster children in the United States. This Dissertation draws from African cosmology, Depth Psychology, and Indigenous traditions, by bridging autoethnographic storytelling, ritual,…

This hermeneutic study examines the phenomena of mediumship and spirit possession in relation to key concepts in Jungian and archetypal psychology. Providing first a comprehensive phenomenological description of a wide range of the phenomena, these descriptions are then compared to and contrasted with C. G. Jung’s theory of spirits as complexes; Henri Corbin’s concepts of…

The purpose of this hermeneutic study was to discover the implicit and explicit assumptions, biases, and values of psychology’s theories and therapies of homosexuality by exploring the conceptual models that have dominated therapeutic practice. The models include gay affirmative therapy and Cass’s six-stage model of homosexual identity development. Additionally, this study examined the balance of…

This study explored how acting can contribute to the healing of attachment trauma. Using a heuristic phenomenological approach and lived experience, the researcher asked two central questions: How can acting serve as a depth psychological intervention for attachment trauma healing? How can a Jungian framework help actors with attachment trauma integrate unconscious material experienced through…