Dissertation Oral Defenses
The purpose of this qualitative doctoral research study is to explore the mental health condition known as anorexia nervosa through the framework of depth psychology in combination with specific concepts from analytical/Jungian psychology to provide an in-depth analysis of the condition beyond current conventional clinical views. Anorexia nervosa is a psychological disorder clinically characterized by…
This qualitative research study makes use of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis to examine psychoanalytic psychotherapy as an effective treatment method for patients with a history of substance abuse. This research queries the experiences of psychoanalytically oriented therapists treating clients with substance use histories in private practice settings. In semi-structured interviews, these therapists were asked to describe…
This dissertation offers an in-depth analysis of the history of Asian American stereotypes presented throughout U.S. media and popular culture, with particular emphasis on the impact of racialized gender stereotypes on Asian American males. Utilizing a theoretical hermeneutic design, three primary stereotypes emerged as essential historical themes employed to control the image and perception of…
Oppositional defiant disorder is one of the most common psychiatric diagnoses in childhood. This hermeneutic research study explores the cultural, historical, and psychological phenomena contributing to contemporary childhood and related disorders, specifically oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and conduct disorder (CD). Accurate diagnosis and treatment of ODD and CD has significant relevance to clinicians working with…
The new millennium with its great advances of science and technology is allowing more people access to a comfortable life in the material dimension, but also appears to be one of increasing dehumanization. What is missing to achieve more loving and peaceful relationships, on the individual and collective level? What should be re-membered from the…
This study explores women’s experience of sexuality as a path to God through the lens of the Jungian theory of individuation. Secondarily, this study explores how film images may be reflecting something new emerging from the collective unconscious related to reconciling the archetypal energies of sexuality and spirituality. Whereas these energies seem to many to…
This study focused on the lived experience of therapists whose clients are in recovery from psychotic disorders within the Windhorse IMH model. The study explored the clinicians’ lived experience of being in extended exchange with clients with psychotic disorders and how clinicians utilize embedded self-care strategies such as contemplative practice, a variety of supervision experiences,…
This research project is an ethnographic narrative that combines African Healing Drum Workshops with Popular Education (PE) and Participatory Action Research (PAR) methodology as a tool for an emancipatory pedagogy that brings about a collective healing. It sheds light on an awareness of the potential future of the Leimert Park area of Los Angeles and…
This dissertation examines the quandary of modern societal dislocation and fragmentation due to loss of traditional forms of making meaning and culture cohesion such as institutionalized religious affiliations, public education, and shared values community building. This project’s approach to inquiry assigns agency to the individual seeking knowledge by bridging access from the self to universal…
This hermeneutic study explores new avenues of depth psychological understanding pertaining to the relationship between lunar symbolism and the psyche. This relationship is grounded in a study of myth, particularly Greek myth, which guides the amplification of the moon as a symbol of critical strata and dynamics of the collective unconscious. Jungian and archetypal psychological…
Qualitative depth psychological research was conducted in Ecuador, SA, to identify overt conscious-intentional and hidden unconscious-archetypal motivations that influenced the decisions for self-initiated expatriation (SIE) from North America and Europe to a country considered paradisiac for SIE. Using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) with a multilayered Jungian approach, results of five months of live interviews with…
This study examined the lived embodied experience of Argentine Tango as it pertains to habitual patterns of interpersonal relating. An interpretive phenomenological approach (IPA) was adopted to investigate how six participants made sense of their embodied experiences. Semi-structured in-depth interviews focused on dance encounters and one-of-a-kind moments related to the phenomenon. The intersubjective experience formed…
The purpose of this alchemical hermeneutic inquiry is to explore the image of ice through multiple media as it coalesces around C. G. Jung’s The Red Book: Liber Novus, a text which was published in our current era of climate crisis. Using the lenses of depth and archetypal psychology, this dissertation amplifies the archetypal core…
Death by suicide is a problem of epidemic proportions in the United States of America. In 2018, 50,351 people died by suicide, ranking the United States 27th in the world for suicide rates (Suicide Rates, p. 1). Nationwide, Black females have historically had the lowest suicide rates across any other culture, race, sex, ethnicity, and…
This depth psychology research interprets the deep and vast territory of self-meanings in the woman’s connection with the fetus, known as the prenatal attachment experience. This process is unique to each woman and may gradually unfold or suddenly arise to protect a woman’s ego from turmoil during the natural course of development. Led by the…
After he began his confrontation with the unconscious, but before he started work in the red leather-bound volume regarded as The Red Book: Liber Novus, C. G. Jung argued with an inner female voice. In the argument he declared that what he was doing was not art but nature. To probe Jung’s perceived gap between…
Epics capture the imagination of the public, occupying significant space in the collective unconscious and offering the opportunity for many to identify with various themes and images in those narratives. With teaching, criticism, and interpretations of canonical works sometimes spanning centuries, as is the case with Dante’s Divine Comedy, or Commedia, these works become such…
Silence can be a useful tool for psychotherapists, and meditative silence can assist clients to understand and come to terms with their mental health. Silence, and specifically meditative silence, remains under-investigated in the psychological literature. Guru and Indian spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar presented Buddhist and Hindu traditions in his writings and teachings on…
The problem of an egocentric underworld or unconscious engagement is presented in both mythology and psychology through examples of imbalance that leads to destructive outcomes. This dissertation ventures into the realm of the underworld and the unconscious by following solar-cycle mythologies and discovers correlating psychological and artistic framework and methodology vital for fostering a creative…
The purpose of this research was to learn more about the embodied experience of riding a motorcycle, and to produce a phenomenological description of the shared and significant features of the experience. Thus, the central question of this research asked, “What is the embodied experience of motorcycle riding?” A small group of seasoned riders were…
