Dissertation Oral Defenses
The purpose of this study was to review the work of depth psychologist C. G. Jung and theoretical physicist Basarab Nicolescu, and to compare and analyze their engagement with the concept of the opposites. The principle of opposition is essential to Jung’s point of view—and can be found in his theory of the transcendent function,…
Inspired by the Delphic maxim “know thyself,” this hermeneutic study expands upon Jung’s research on oracular collaboration with the unconscious. Depth, transpersonal, eco-spiritual, and relational psychologies are compared with modern and ancient oracular tools, texts, and methods to describe how oracular inquiry serves the individuation process. Four themes emerged in the analysis. First, oracular inquiry…
This dissertation presents a critical examination of the pervasive purity culture within evangelical Christianity, highlighting its intrinsic ties to misogyny, patriarchy, and institutionalized abstinence-only education. By delving into the historical contexts of gender and sexuality in ancient Israelite and Greco-Roman societies, and deconstructing biblical narratives concerning women, this study reveals how purity culture manipulates Christian…
This dissertation calls for a reassessment of the serpent’s role in the Garden of Eden story, proposing that traditional interpretations emphasizing seduction and disobedience overlook the serpent’s potential as an agent of creation and a catalyst for the birth of consciousness. The fundamental tension between the chaos introduced by the serpent and the order maintained…
Throughout the ages, humankind has continuously explored the unseen world in an attempt to make sense of the mysterious cosmos and our place within it (Eliade, 1964/1992; Lockhart, 2010; Tarnas, 2006). Standing upon the shoulders of ancient philosophical and spiritual traditions, Jungian depth psychology and energy healing therapy alike engage with this subtle world based…
What we are witnessing on college and university campuses today threatens institutional values of open inquiry and critical thinking. As a unique and vital part of society, institutions of higher education were once viewed as laboratories for ideas. Today’s display of intellectual intolerance, hostile discourse, and stifled free speech in the name of “safety” threaten…
This Jungian arts-based research (JABR) engages a dream image with the Jungian process of active imagination to weave a tapestry, retrieving image-symbols from the cultural unconscious. Hermeneutic amplification of these image-symbols reveals, explores, and challenges a cultural complex woven into the fabric of the U.S. public school system. The research exposes two areas of what…
Alienation from nonhuman nature has severe clinical implications. Both depth psychologists and ecopsychologists have called for therapeutic approaches that reorient Westerners to the more-than-human world and their fundamental relatedness in it. This study presents the Jungian notion of individuation as one such deeply relational framework with reconnective potential, and it explores the individuating practice of…
This dissertation delves into unhoused women’s experience of artmaking in community at the Downtown Women’s Center (DWC), Skid Row, Los Angeles, California, USA. Weekly mixed media workshops were held to explore the women’s experiences and any potential benefits. The study integrated mindfulness and art-based heuristic inquiry framed by nondualism which is grounded in interconnection and…
Yogic teachings depict the aim of life as reuniting with Spirit, and Paramahansa Yogananda (1982, 1995, 2011) expounded on the deep meaning of living one’s life in this way. Although the practice of meditation has been shown to allow for greater access to experience outside of functional ego consciousness (Bruce et al., 2010; Nanda, 2005;…
Tupac Amaru Shakur, the celebrated icon of hip-hop music and film, who was tragically murdered in 1996, is widely recognized as a sociocultural and artistic phenomenon. As a means of exploring the archetypal themes present in Shakur’s life and personality, this hermeneutic study analyzes Shakur’s artistic output, including his songs, poems, interviews, texts, and film…
The focus of this study is to contribute to the Western understanding of ayahuasca, a plant medicine of the Amazonian Basin, by focusing on the oral teachings of a Peruvian vegetalista, an Indigenous medicine person. This study contextualizes ayahuasca as a cultural artifact that reflects and reproduces the cultural-historical context in which it appears, not…
Re-Storying A Sense of The Sacred With A Mythological Herd: An In-Depth Study of Horses In Mythology
Stories and images of horses are present in the earliest recorded forms of human imagination, from paintings on cave walls in the Paleolithic era, to war horses depicted in Homeric epics, and sacrificial horse rituals described in sacred texts. Mythical horses carry gods, elevate heroes, and transport the sun across the heavens. Hindu and Indigenous…
This inquiry will focus on the psycho-spiritual embodiment of the Africanist female experience and the intersection of race and gender as it relates to the potential of individuation and transformation. This study uses an Africanist-centered form of autoethnography called Nkwaethnography to examine the ongoing transformative experience of conscious and unconscious awareness of long held patterns…
This study compares contemporary comic books to historical examples of esoteric and religious texts in order to evaluate how comic books might operate as mystico- visionary texts. Mystico-visionary texts are texts that seek to catalyze the author’s own experience of mystical revelation within subsequent readers of that text. By finding similarities between contemporary comic books…
Using a hermeneutic methodology, this study reorients psychic multiplicity and individuation toward a more fluid model of consciousness without an ego complex for the field of Jungian depth psychology. It asserts the argument that the psyche is a multiple consciousness via the concept of subpersonalities. Contrastingly, in his analytical psychology, C.G. Jung posited the ego…
This hermeneutical study traverses the epic Sumerian poem “From the Great Above to the Great Below” as a metaphor for the heroine’s journey into the underworld of patriarchy within the Christian tradition. The Goddess Inanna emerges as an archetypal hierophant for twenty-first century women who choose a path of individuation in response to the vocational…
This dissertation explores the necessity of a mutually beneficial relationship between humanity and the life with which we share this planet, incorporating the precepts of depth psychology and deep ecology to support the mental health of the individual and the continued advancement of the human condition. The concepts of the shadow, the trickster, and Wetiko…
This hermeneutic study researches the archetypal experience of divorce through alchemy. Divorce is a psychological ordeal that is painful, persistent, and an assiduous institution of American culture. The decision to divorce a soulmate creates a unique and under analyzed psychological gap between the subjective experience of divorce and the psyche’s archetypal factors of disconnection from…
The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a rapid transition to telehealth for the delivery of mental health services. Furthermore, teletherapy is known to be as effective as in-person psychotherapy for children and adults. However, little is known about the use of sandplay therapy via telehealth; sandplay is traditionally offered in person. The purpose of this study…
