The Friday before commencement is the M.A. Counseling Psychology Program’s Thesis Presentation Day. Students who wish to present their thesis to fellow classmates, family, staff, and professors have the opportunity to showcase their research findings and experiences throughout the process. Today we would like to highlight all of the presenters and the titles of their papers. Thesis presentations for the M.A. Counseling Psychology Program will take place on Friday, May 25th at Pacifica’s Ladera Lane Campus from 9am to 5 pm in Classrooms A, B, and G, with lunch to be served from 12:00 pm to 1:30 pm. This event is free and open to the public.
About the Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology Thesis Process
Research and writing are two ways among many of finding meaning within and conferring meaning on experience. These fundamentally human activities can be deeply imaginal and intuitive. In research and writing, we seek to uncover the deep truth of the human condition. Within the context of the Institute’s guiding vision, students are encouraged to select a research question they wish to explore in depth through the vehicle of the thesis. Towards this end, the student is asked to:
- pursue an area of individual interest relevant to marriage and family therapy, professional clinical counseling, and depth psychology (e.g., therapeutic issues, psychological motifs, clinical procedures);
- ground this particular area of interest in a conceptual framework (e.g., background information, findings, concluding evaluation);
- demonstrate competency researching a specific area and expressing ideas with clarity and precision.
Working on the thesis is likely to play an important role in the individuation process. Students may feel called or drawn to their thesis topic and excited with what they are undertaking. There are often unexpected twists and turns along the way and finally the deep satisfaction of coming to understand the research question, and often oneself, more fully. The thesis process culminates in the sharing of each student’s findings through publication of your thesis with ProQuest. Publication of the thesis is your contribution to the rich lineage of research in the fields of counseling psychology and depth psychology.
Below are the list of presenters:
C TRACK:
Jill McGonigle (Advisor: Michele Wolf)
Psyche and the Restless Soul: The Phenomenon of ADHD From a Cultural and Depth Perspective
Paul Ratliff (Advisor: Mike Elliott)
The Soul of Mischief: Understanding Mischief as a Psychotherapeutic Tool
Alia Aizenstat (Advisor: Mike Elliott)
Psychotherapy in the Digital Age: The Integration of Online Identities in the Therapeutic Process
Demitra Tsioulos (Advisor: Mike Elliott)
Exploring Architecture and Psyche: How the Feminine Communicates in Emergent Phenomena
Joshua Perkins (Advisor: Elisabeth Gonella)
A Critical Assessment of the Use of Coercive Interventions in Adolescent Mental Health Care
Natalya Sivashov (Advisor: Elisabeth Gonella)
The Wonders of Nature: Healing the Soul Through the Natural World
Sheridan Henderson (Advisor: Gioia Jacobson)
Blood Test: The Transcendent Potential of Chaos
Kelly Decker (Advisor: Kathee Miller)
The Disconnect: Nature and the Shadow Not Another Paper About the Beauty of Nature
Ryan Popkin (Advisor: Allen Koehn)
Polyamory and Polytheistic Psychology: Emergent Archetypal Dynamics of the Structure of the Psyche
Allison Arkfeld (Advisor: Allen Koehn)
Playing in Virtual Spaces: Radical Emergence Within Technologically Embodied Generations
Benjamin Hall (Advisor: Joanna Walling)
Embodied Sound and Movement: The Soul, Science, and Containment of Music and Emotion in Psychotherapy
Karen Hanzlian (Advisor: Joanna Walling)
Soul Wounds of Indigenous People: Multigenerational Poverty and Suicide in New Mexico
Jose Maria Jimenez Orvananos (Advisor: Gioia Jacobson)
Those Beautiful Names for Heresies: The Sexual and Erotic Identities of Contemporary Queer Teens
D TRACK:
Jennifer Vogel (Advisor: Matthew Bennett)
A Mythopoetic Exploration of Maternal Grief: When a Child is Diagnosed on the Autism Spectrum
Adrian O’Donnell (Advisor: Matthew Bennett)
Depth Psychology and the Longings of Eternal Youth
Lyra Angelica Matin (Advisor: Michelle Villegas)
Protective Maternity: The Prevention and Healing of Childbirth Trauma
Sherry Gonzalez (Advisor: Kaeti Gugiu)
Beyond the Narrative: Effective Therapeutic Approaches in Early Childhood Trauma
Lauren Davison (Advisor: Tom Steffora)
The Soul Speaking: Symptoms as a Beckoning into the Archetype of Initiation
Margarit Semerjian (Advisor: Gioia Jacobson)
Birth Order: Ties to Personalities and Archetype
Sarah Case (Advisor: Joanna Walling)
The Therapist and the Body: An Investigation Into the Connection Between Somatic Practice and Intuition
Vanessa Smith (Advisor: Joanna Walling)
The Archetype of Initiation: A Physical Manifestation Through Psychically Co-Created Trauma
Joseph Buchman (Advisor: Joanna Walling)
Demagoguery and Narcissism in the Contemporary American Collective: A Depth Psychological Perspective
Ryan Crowley (Advisor: Mike Elliott)
Making Life Beautiful: The Power of Phantasia in and for Psychotherapy
Thomas Jefferys (Advisor: Mike Elliott)
Understanding the Invisible Boy: Finding the Lost Male Voice
Dulcinea Contreras (Advisor: Tom Steffora)
Tending Mind and Soul With Creative Written and Verbal Expression in Therapy
Christina DeMeola (Advisor: Kathee Miller)
Tattoo: Image and Transformation
Kathryn Ann Miller (Advisor: Kathee Miller)
Dancing in the Dark: Eros as Catalyst for Individuation
Christina Dee (Advisor: Tom Steffora)
The Resurrection of the Dead: Mourning as a Creative Process
David Smith (Advisor: Jorge de la O)
Getting Out of Autopilot: Mindfulness, Breath, and Depth
Maria Castellano-Hsia (Advisor: Jorge de la O)
Immigration: Exploration of the Liminal Space Betwixt and Between Cultures
Aaron Faist (Advisor: Tom Steffora)
A Depth Psychological Inquiry Into Listening
W TRACK:
Elizabeth Clark (Advisor: Rebecca Pottenger)
Reintegrating the Inner Feminine and Masculine: Using Adorata, Treating Wounds From Childhood Abuse and Neglect
Rachel Foster (Advisor: Barbara Boyd)
A Quest Toward Wholeness Through Active Imagination
Amanda Hamilton (Advisor: Rebecca Pottenger)
Ayahuasca and the Treatment of Depression and Addiction: A Depth Perspective
Kuldeep Kaur (Advisor: Barbara Boyd)
Serious Effects of the Micro: Microaggressions and Their Traumatic Effects
Jane Snyder (Advisor: Aaron Kipnis)
Death and the Goddess: Consciousness as Integration
L TRACK:
Michelle Sargent (Advisor: Barbara Boyd)
Living on the Edge of a Spiral: Early Childhood Numinous Experience and the Repetition Compulsion
Marlane Agriesti (Advisor: Barbara Boyd)
What Eros Wanted Psyche to Know: Mythic Steps to Individuation for the Fragmented Psyche
Dustin Urban (Advisor: Matthew Bennett)
Huxley’s Flowers: Psychedelics and the Liberation of the Anima Mundi
Heidi Alsop (Advisor: Aaron Kipnis)
My Journey with the Crone: Authoring an Identity Post-Mormonism
Beth Lee-Herbert (Advisor: Barbara Boyd)
The Fertile Abyss: La Llorona, La Malinche, and the Role of the Terrible Mother Archetype in Transcending Oppression
Caleb Alexander (Advisor: Avrom Altman)
Transcending Human Emotion: The Unconditional State of Love Used as a Tool for Human Development
Amelia Exner (Advisor: Avrom Altman)
She Gives Birth to Flowers: Honoring the Darkness; Embodying the Sacred Feminine
Craig Bessermin (Advisor: Avrom Altman)
Psyche and the Subject Dominant-Object Relationship
Bridget Kuhar (Advisor: Aaron Kipnis)
The Dissociative State: An Ecopsychological Inquiry of Trauma in Alaska
Rian Roberson (Advisor: Matthew Bennett)
Between the Margins: Biracial Identity Development in a Nation Divided by the Color Line
Research, Writing and the Creative Imagination
Research and writing need not be divided into the artificial categories of academic and creative. The academic and creative can be seen as two impulses of the same activity: a search to discover what is truly revelatory about the subject of your focus and expression. Imagining and perceiving are both essential activities in research and written expression and seek an integral relational language at home in a world of meaning. Research and the act of writing allow you to go beyond what is given or simply perceived in detail; you hope to glimpse what is promised, what is anticipated in the givenness of experience, grasping its deeper psychological ground. It is important to remember that just as you are in a process of a deepening formation, what you intuit as you research and write is similarly provisional and tentative—true for the moment but always open to being reshaped as your larger understanding shifts and grows.
The tradition of depth psychology is less interested in the split between academic and creative expression and more attentive to comprehending a coniunctio between them: a marriage between the senses, ideas, insights, and images that, when summoned together, offer readers a place they have not traveled to before, and an insight for the researcher/writer that you can call your own. Research and the act of writing are ways to free the imagination to explore, to see relationships, to intuit possibilities, and to glean new and provocative forms inherent in the commonplace. These are uniquely creative acts that attempt to bring the voices of authority into a common cause with your own unique voice in order to discern what has not been articulated in just such a way before.
Pacifica Graduate Institute Core Values
Logos -The idea that academic excellence is central to what informs our curriculum, research, and scholarship—demonstrated by conscious reflective regard for new knowledge resting securely on the traditions of the past that inform the development of the whole person (intellect, dream, intuition, symptoms, feeling, imagination and other ways of knowing) in relation to the larger social world.
Eros -The importance of open communication, respectful relationship, care, and a heartfelt regard for a diverse community, which includes a love for learning as a noble goal of the human spirit.
Consciousness -The awareness of Pacifica as a “psychological community” with a connection to the deep psyche—mindful attention is given to personal and community introspection, the conscious tending of the shadow of consciousness, and a respect for solar thinking (reason) and lunar reflection (dream and imagination).
Integrity -The necessity for a just, psyche-centered attitude rooted in the “wisdom traditions,” and committed to cultivating an honest and caring presence among ourselves, our students, and the world around us.
Service -To ourselves as unique human beings, to others within the Pacifica community as well as to those we engage in the world through our example, talks, lectures, workshops, writing, teaching; the capacity to see through cultural forms; the art of hosting the incarnate and the invisible; and our ongoing service to our fields of Depth Psychology, Mythological Studies, and the Humanities.
Stewardship – Care of the world soul as expressed in Pacifica’s motto, animae mundi colendae gratia, becoming sustainable at all levels—from our way of being actively present in imaginal inquiry to our presence in the larger earth community, from work load to land use, from our way of conducting business to our model of doing business.
