Dissertation Oral Defenses


Candidate: Paige Bigelow Date: March 4, 2025 Time: 1:00 pm

Philosophy’s first question, How shall we live?, is examined in this dissertation through the figure of Socrates, first as portrayed in Plato’s works and then subsequently as interpreted by scholars, philosophers, and “poets,” in the broad sense of the word. The inquiry focuses on themes of concern to Plato and subsequent interpreters of Socrates, which…


Candidate: A. Adrian Colón Date: February 25, 2025 Time: 4:00 pm

This qualitative study investigated how combat veterans diagnosed with combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were able to make meaning of their combat-related PTSD nightmares. There is a disconnect within the mental health field regarding understanding the messages and meanings of these nightmares and how they might serve the veteran in treatment. Current popular treatment methods…


Candidate: Elizabeth Altman Date: February 20, 2025 Time: 10:00 am

The psychological phenomenon of homesickness affects individuals everywhere, regardless of geography or culture. Following an autoethnographic method, this investigation deepens understanding of homesickness not only through personal understanding, but also in terms of understanding the factors that tie one’s sense of home, self, and belonging together. Through attachment theory, environmental psychology, and German Romanticism, the…


Candidate: Jack Mendoza Date: February 12, 2025 Time: 1:00 pm

This dissertation explores the concept of individuation, primarily focusing on its application to Salvadorans, and delves into the psychological journey of individuation as proposed by C. G. Jung. The study emphasizes the process of becoming one’s true self and achieving the conscious- unconscious union of opposites and one’s psychological wholeness. The discussion also extends into…


Candidate: Stella Dennett Date: February 10, 2025 Time: 2:30 pm

This theoretical dissertation explores the relationship between individuation—Jung’s theory of personality or psychospiritual development—and the journey through addiction and recovery, examined through an archetypal astrological perspective. While addiction has been studied through biopsychosocial frameworks, this research broadens the depth- psychological discourse by integrating archetypal astrology as a human-science methodology. The study centers on the lived…


Candidate: Susan Persing Date: February 6, 2025 Time: 10:00 am

This dissertation is a mythopoetic exploration of the Christian Trinity as a relationship of interchangeable, nongendered functions evolving through time. Based in depth psychology and employing the ternary metaphysics of Boehme, Gurdjieff, and Bourgeault, the gendered language of the Trinity is reimagined and translated into interchangeable functions of affirmation, denial, and reconciliation to free this…


Candidate: Jason Batt Date: January 28, 2025 Time: 2:00 pm

This theoretical dissertation explores the evolution of mythology as humanity embarks on its journey into the cosmos, proposing that the vast expanse of space will give rise to new mythological frameworks. Drawing on the works of Joseph Campbell, C. G. Jung, Ernst Cassirer, and Julia Kristeva, it argues that space exploration—especially interstellar travel—will profoundly reshape…


Candidate: Nusa Maal Date: January 28, 2025 Time: 10:00 am

This research brings the nuanced terrain of multisensory human experience to the center of synesthesia studies. While existing literature predominantly focuses on trait-based and neurocentric approaches, much of the wholeness and humanness of synesthetic experience remains under-represented, particularly how synesthetic phenomena overflow beyond configured categories and integrate into meaningful life paths. Balancing art and science…


Candidate: Latonia M. Dixon Date: January 27, 2025 Time: 10:00 am

This dissertation focuses on diverse ways women of color can heal after experiencing sexual, mental, and emotional abuse using tools and insights from depth psychology and mythology, as well as Black feminist, Womanist, Ifa/Orisa, Tibetan Buddhist, and heart-centered modalities. It also examines how two female divinities, Osun the Yoruba Ifa/Orisa and goddess of love, and…


Candidate: Jennifer Emily Tronti Date: January 23, 2025 Time: 10:00 am

This study explores tears as a paradigm of mythopoetic storytelling, especially emphasizing tears’ reflexive and generative properties. Ritual lament and religious devotion root the study in communal traditions and individual practices of weeping. By analyzing the performative expressions of ancient texts (Libation Bearers, Trojan Women, Tristia, Lamentations) along with the mystical imaginings of devotional writers…


Candidate: Vanessa Black Date: December 20, 2024 Time: 1:00 pm

This study explored the praxis of practitioners working in dyadic disciplines, both inside and outside of conventional psychotherapy, in an attempt to answer the question: How do biopsychosocialculturalspiritual and historical factors related to the phenomena of countertransference influence practitioners in contemporary practices? In doing so, the study also examined the ways in which countertransference literature…


Candidate: Ishtar Kramer Date: December 10, 2024 Time: 1:00 pm

Scarred by the wounds of a history predicated on colonialism and later modernism/coloniality, the academy can either be a cage of imprisonment, often propagating spaces of dissonance by silencing and marginalizing alternative ontologies and epistemologies, or it can be a key to liberation. This co-participatory research project summoned the collaborative endeavors of scholar/activists and their…


Candidate: Stewart Stephens Date: December 8, 2024 Time: 2:00 pm

This is a dissertation focusing on the character of Gandalf, the wizard of J.R.R. Tolkien’s massively popular The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit, among other titles within the collective mythology of Middle-earth, referred to as the legendarium, and extended to wider depictions and franchises associated with Tolkien’s world and the character. This…


Candidate: Tess Merridy Beasley Date: December 3, 2024 Time: 3:00 pm

In the last century, ideas and practices related to Zen Buddhism have profoundly influenced Western culture, shaping not only psychotherapeutic, self-help, and mindfulness movements, but wide-ranging marketing initiatives promoting wellness, ease, and peace of mind. C. G. Jung revered Zen’s wisdom, finding deep parallels with his own work transforming consciousness, yet also feared its appropriation…


Candidate: Mark Alan Ransom Date: December 3, 2024 Time: 11:00 am

This study addresses the marginalization of the acoustic image in depth psychology and the gap in existing research on the value of musical modalities to the practice of archetypal image work. It employs a Jungian arts-based method to research the process of transforming dream imagery into songs. Following an extensive review of theories pertaining to…


Candidate: Charlie Keller Date: December 2, 2024 Time: 10:00 am

This autoethnographic inquiry explores the individuation process of lesbian sexuality within Texas and American culture. The study argues that a lesbian’s journey toward authentic self-expression of her sexuality is inflected by social discourse and culture. The individual and the collective have a deeply intertwined relationship that influences the psychological health of the other. Staying true…


Candidate: Mary Underwood Date: November 25, 2024 Time: 11:00 am

Concerned with the experience of individuals affected by domestic abuse (psychological abuse), this dissertation engages a somatic and depth psychological theoretical framework to conduct, interpret, and synthesize a comprehensive literature review by employing a hermeneutic phenomenological method. This inquiry was undertaken to explore how the field of domestic abuse and the disciplines of somatics and…


Candidate: Felicia E. Hilliard-Rueff Date: November 21, 2024 Time: 11:00 am

This Qualitative, voice-centered study investigated the lived experiences of identity formation of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer plus individuals with an affiliation to Christianity. Through the Listening Guide method, this study aimed to hear and understand the salient voices used by Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer plus in an effort to understand the formation of…


Candidate: Sonia Kazandjian Date: November 12, 2024 Time: 11:00 am

This study explores how the mother, orphan, and abandoned child archetypes interact within the psyches of individuals who have lived in Armenian orphanages. The orphanage as a container or community consists of children who either have lost one or both parents through death or are left behind by one or both parents who do not…


Candidate: Kiese Hill Date: November 11, 2024 Time: 11:00 am

John Milton’s Paradise Lost established his legacy as one of the greatest English poets, yet labeling him simply as a Protestant or Puritan limits the scope of his work. His writing embodies an activist mysticism that resists the restrictive doctrines of the Church of England and institutionalized religion more generally. Milton’s vision champions freedom of…