Dissertation Oral Defenses

Objective: In this study the researcher examined the psychological mindset of men who have killed in combat and specifically the mental process that allowed them to do so. Additionally, this study examines killing from a Jungian perspective. Method: Grounded Theory Method provided the structure to examine ten written accounts of men who experienced combat and…

Depth psychologist C.G. Jung bemoaned the loss of imagination within religion. Jung’s mystical experience was far too deep and intense to be captured in any language other than that of the soul. Rather than striving for an exact or literal meaning, the soul delights in plurality as well as multiple levels of understanding, and realizations.…

This study explores the exegetical methodology of the early Christian philosopher Origen of Alexandria, and re-introduces him as a vital guide for the interpretation of the ongoing personal myth written in the living human documents of every soul. Origen utilizes a three-tiered exegetical strategy, interpreting meaning first at the literal level—with both historical and religious…

This study utilized a Grounded Theory methodology to investigate the positive and negative impact of silence in the therapeutic dyad. Thirteen licensed psychotherapists of different theoretical traditions related their experiences of using silence as a clinical tool to increase patient contact with unconscious affect needing to be expressed and integrated. Investigation centered on both the…

This study sought to contribute to the body of cross-cultural and multicultural psychology literature by embarking on a qualitative exploration of how health and illness are conceptualized and treated from an Amerindian indigenous shamanic perspective. Utilizing Charmaz’s (2006) grounded theory methodology, a conceptual theory of indigenous shamanic healing interventions and their mechanisms of efficacy was…

The purpose of this artistic self-case study is to explore how the role of the soldier might be transformed from service in war to service for community, via creative exploration of the archetypal figures, Warrior and Shaman. With this in mind, a creative and introspective method was tested for its efficacy in generating new images…

The purpose of this study was to investigate and understand MDMA-assisted psychotherapy from its early days to its current use in FDA approved studies. By utilizing a Consensual Qualitative Research (CQR) method to analyze the data for this study, the team sought to shed light on the main findings of the research. The participants were…

The methodology for this work uses a psychological and phenomenological approach to listening, which emphasizes noticing affects and gestures as intimations of felt meaning in the researcher as she engages in the work. The initiating intimation called for listening into Western relatedness to mathematics across three significant discoveries in the history of Western mathematics: ancient…

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…