At Pacifica, we choose to honor women every day of the year, and to invite inclusivity always. But as Women’s History Month and March 8’s International Women’s Day invite us to highlight the contributions of women, we wanted to focus on something near to our hearts and minds, which is “Women Making History in Depth Psychology.” Pacifica is fortunate to have gifted women faculty, students, and alumni who are forging their own paths, writing their own manifestos, and fundamentally improving and evolving not just the written scholarship on depth psychology, but also the ways that depth psychology is available in the world. We are proud to currently be featuring two interviews on Pacifica’s website celebrating both of these things.
The first is with Dr. Indhushree Rajan, an alum of Pacifica, who created Project Satori, and dedicates her professional life to helping victims of human trafficking, a global crisis that that affects women and children in every country. “A Bittersweet Weave of Survival and Purpose” can be read here.
And as for the scholarship of depth psychology, we are delighted to have an interview with Dr. Maureen Murdock, a former faculty member at Pacifica who authored the bestselling and groundbreaking work, The Heroine’s Journey, a rebuttal to Joseph Campbell’s well-known The Hero’s Journey.
In The Heroine’s Journey, Maureen posits, “So many women having taken the hero’s journey, only to find it personally empty and dangerous for humanity. Women emulated the male heroic journey because there were no other images to emulate.” She continues her work with “Writing Down the Soul: An Archetypal and Mythological Approach to Memoir Writing” through Pacifica Extension’s certificate offerings, beginning on March 23rd.
In considering other women scholars who have shaped the field of depth psychology, we asked our faculty to name those who have most shaped them. You might have expected one or two names to be repeated in these nominations. But each person named someone different as their depth psychology heroine, revealing the rich and important presence of women in the field. Marion Woodman, Marija Gimbutas, Ginette Paris, Christine Downing, Fanny Brewster, Marie-Louise von Franz, Susan Rowland, Carol Christ, Clarissa Pinkola Estés, and many others were fervently thanked for their powerful work. Below are just a few of these tributes.
Pacifica Extension: Trailblazers, Renegades and Mystics – A Five-Part Series Honoring Women’s History Month
Pacifica Extension and International Studies also invites you to join us as PGI faculty members delve into the lives of extraordinary women who have shaped history. In this thought-provoking, five-part series, Mary Wood, David Odorisio, Camille Harris, Emily Lord-Kambitsch and Dylan Hoffman offer a depth psychological snapshot of trail-blazing women as they illuminate the complexities, contributions and relevance of their lives and work for the contemporary challenges we face today. To watch this complimentary series, please visit the Pacifica Extension website. The first video should be posted soon with the remainder throughout the month!
While the work is ongoing, let us use this day and this month to celebrate women’s achievements and continue our efforts toward gender equality and inclusion.
