Nuria Ciofalo, Ph.D.

Nuria Ciofalo has an M.A. and Ph.D. in psychology, and an M.A. in urban and regional planning. Born in Mexico, she gained her B.A. and first M.A. in Germany where she specialized in psychoanalytic theories, particularly Jung and Adler, and, her latter M.A. and Ph.D. in a community focused psychology program at University of Hawaii. From 1982-1987 she was a professor of psychology and chair of the Psychology Department for five years at University of Xochicalco (Mexico), for two summers in an M.A. psychology summer program at University of Las Americas. Since her doctorate in 1996, she has worked in wide variety of research situations in the U.S. and Mexico, training others to do research and managing and evaluating large-scale research projects. She has extensive experience using and training others to use ethnography, oral history, community theater, and other participatory action approaches. She is keenly aware of enlisting the imaginal in her research processes, knowledgeable in how to use theater, drawing, and photo images as means of expressing experience. In addition, she has applied Jungian archetypal theory in her teaching of youth in correctional institutions. For the last seven years she has been a Senior Evaluation Analyst at The California Endowment.

                                                                                           

Areas of Interests: Depth psychology applied to community studies; Jungian approaches to youth development; ethnocultural aspects in depth psychology; indigenous psychologies, participatory action research; indigenous approaches to knowledge generation; depth psychology and psychodrama; archetypal psychology and cultural issues, and liberation psychology.

Classes She’ll Teach in 2009-2010:  Freudian Psychology I, Depth Psychology and Cultural Issues II