Glen studied psychology and comparative religion at The University of Sydney before coming to the United States in 1992 for doctoral work in clinical psychology. He has been teaching at Pacifica for over twenty years and is currently the Associate Chair of the Jungian and Archetypal Studies specialization. He also teaches in the Mythological Studies program.
Dennis is a core faculty member who helped shape the development of the Mythological Studies program. He has been teaching for 44 years from elementary to secondary, undergraduate, and graduate programs. He has received the prominent rank of Distinguished Core Faculty at Pacifica Graduate Institute.
Following a 20-year career in law, Amy Slonaker received her Ph.D. in Mythological Studies from Pacifica Graduate Institute. Her dissertation applied theories of consciousness and the imagination to the study of comic books, interpreting comics as mystico-visionary texts. Amy has published in several academic anthologies in the area of religion and comics, including her chapter “Mystico Erotics of the Next-Age Superhero: Christian Hippie Comics of the 1970s” in A New Gnosis: Comic Books, Comparative Mythology, and Depth Psychology.
Evans has degrees from Williams College, Antioch International, and The Claremont Graduate School. He is the author of ten books and numerous articles on comparative literature and mythology, and has taught at colleges in Switzerland, Maryland, Texas, and California, and at the C.G. Jung Institute in Kusnacht.
Dr. Katherine Smith came to the field of clinical psychology after working as a Human Resources consultant in healthcare and tech start-ups. After a period of self-exploration, she enrolled in the Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology program at Antioch University Los Angeles where she specialized in Spiritual and Depth Psychology. She then pursued a doctorate in clinical psychology with an emphasis in depth psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Her dissertation was an interpretative phenomenological analysis of the clinician experience of treating suicidal patients and she continues to specialize in working with people who suffer from suicidal ideation and chronic depression.
Pam Soffer is an LA based Depth Psychotherapist and Ecotherapist. She works with individuals and groups to create deeper connections to self and the world by tending to the unconscious roots of our awareness. Weaving together nature-based awareness, dreamwork, Breathwork, EMDR and ritual, she uses an integrative approach to support each person’s unique nervous system. Her own journey towards wholeness has led her deeper into the wisdom of the body, the power of imagination and harmonious living with the cycles of natural world.
Paul W. Speer, Ph.D. is a Professor at Vanderbilt University. His research is in the area of community organizing, participation, social power and community change.
Brian is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and a member of Pacifica’s Adjunct Faculty in the M.A. Counseling Psychology department. He is a native Angeleno, having grown-up as a gay man in the 1970s in an impoverished ghetto of suburban Los Angeles. Brian has been a gay grassroots-psychological activist for many years. His clinical focus is on the empowerment and cultivation of LGBTQ+ personhood that honors and values the vitality, social role and visionary aspects of the LGBTQ+ experience from an affirmative and psychodynamic Jungian depth orientation.
Anja is a Pacifica Graduate Institute alumna and an LMFT with a private practice in Los Angeles, specializing in working with people in creative fields. She brings her background in screenwriting and filmmaking to her work, with an approach based in depth psychology, mindfulness and somatic awareness. Anja has published multiple articles in peer-reviewed journals and is a consultant at The International School of Los Angeles, where she continues her passion for working with teens. She had previously served on the board of The Center for Nonviolent Education and Communication. Anja has an MA in Journalism from the University in Vienna, Austria, and a BA in Political Science and Art History.
Brian Stafford MD, MPH is a licensed pediatrician, adult, adolescent, child, infant, and perinatal psychiatrist, having trained at the Tulane School of Medicine, the University of Kentucky Triple Board Program, and the Tulane Infant Institute. He practiced as an academic psychiatrist for 20 years at the Tulane School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital Colorado where he was the Anschutz Family Chair in Early Childhood Psychiatry. He also trained in Eco-depth psychotherapy and Soul Initiation Guiding through the Soulcraft Apprenticeship and Initiation Program at the Animas Valley Institute where he is now a Senior Guide, Trainer, Board Member, and Director of the holistic eco-depth psychotherapy Wild Mind Training Program.
Zaman has a doctorate in Political Science and completed his postgraduate studies in Islamic Mysticism (Sufism) and Islamic Gnosticism (Erfan). He has taught at Kabul University, the University of Southern California, the University of California, Los Angeles, and several community colleges in Southern California. His of areas of specialization are: Islamic Studies; Sufism; Theosophy; Political Philosophy;and Poetic Expression in Mystical Thought.
Thomas is a practicing psychotherapist, based out of Santa Maria and licensed in CA, AZ, and NV. He received his Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology from Pacifica in 2013. Thomas is Core Faculty and Research Associate for Track D in the Counseling Department. He has taught Psychopathology, Psychopharmacology, Cultural Psychology, Archetypal and Imaginal Psychology, and Research courses in the MA Counseling program. Working in close collaboration with health care professionals Thomas serves as a clinical consultant with Dignity/CommonSpirit Health in crisis support, medical staff wellness, and educational capacities. He has presented publicly and formally on mood and anxiety challenges, especially when involving co-occurring medical issues.
Maurice Stevens, Ph.D. brings expertise in critical trauma theory and designing interdisciplinary and engaged research methodologies, participatory leadership models, and community-driven social justice informed research.
Victoria Stevens, Ph.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst, as well as a classically trained cellist, singer, dancer and actor. She is an adjunct faculty member in the PhD Program in Clinical, Counseling and School Psychology at UC Santa Barbara, adjunct faculty at \ Pacifica Graduate Institute in the Clinical Psychology PhD and Depth Integrative Healing Programs, Antioch University Los Angeles in the Trauma Specialization, and the Clinical Psychology Program at Antioch University at Santa Barbara where she co-created and is founding faculty for the Somatic Psychotherapy Certification Program with a focus on Trauma Treatment.
Robert is a Founding Faculty Member at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis, Los Angeles, and at the Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity, New York City. He is the author of World, Affectivity, Trauma: Heidegger and Post-Cartesian Psychoanalysis (Routledge, 2011) and Trauma and Human Existence: Autobiographical, Psychoanalytic, and Philosophical Reflections (Routledge, 2007) as well as numerous other books.
Tina is an analyst and faculty member of the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco, and has a private practice in San Francisco. Past co-founder and faculty member of the Authentic Movement Institute, she teaches internationally, and is a founding faculty member of the Women’s Spirituality Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies. A long-time core faculty member of the Marion Woodman Foundation, she also teaches in the Specialization in Somatics Studies Doctoral program at Pacifica.
Benjamin Strosberg, PhD is Assistant Professor in the Clinical Psychology program at Pacifica Graduate Institute and a psychotherapist in private practice. He earned his doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Duquesne University. Dr. Strosberg’s research is deeply rooted in the human science tradition, traversing critical, psychoanalytic, and phenomenological approaches. Currently, his research carves two primary paths: a renewed clinical engagement with French psychoanalyst Jean Laplanche and a critical examination of racism and anti-Semitism. His published work spans diverse topics, including teletherapy, psychosis, Jewish studies, and education, and engages with seminal thinkers such as Jacques Lacan, Emmanuel Levinas, and Theodor Adorno. Committed to advancing critical reflection, Dr. S
Li Sumpter is a multidisciplinary artist and independent scholar who applies strategies of worldbuilding and mythic design toward building better, more resilient communities of the future. Li’s creative research and collaborative design initiatives engage the art of survival and sustainability through diverse ecologies and immersive stories of change. Li is a cultural producer and eco-arts activist working through MythMedia Studios, the Escape Artist Initiative and various arts and community-based organizations in Philadelphia, PA, and across the country. Li has taught courses on Myth and the Media, Film and Ecology, and Afrofuturism at Haverford College and Moore College of Art and Design.
Dr. Ginger Swanson is a certified medical support hypnotherapist and retreat host, planner, and guide, leading a range of semi-annual retreats on topics that range from memoir writing to dream tending and more. She assists individuals in identifying blocks to creativity and authenticity. Her background also involves supporting organizations in mind mapping their goals and collective visions and doing so with a respect for metaphor and meaning-making. She is an alumna of the Depth Psychology program.
Becca S. Tarnas, Ph.D., is a scholar, artist, and editor of Archai: The Journal of Archetypal Cosmology. She received her doctorate in Philosophy and Religion from the California Institute of Integral Studies, with her dissertation titled The Back of Beyond: The Red Books of C. G. Jung and J. R. R. Tolkien.
