RESEARCH STORIES
"Everything is held together with stories. That is all that is holding us together, stories and compassion."
~ Barry Holstun Lopez
HIGHLIGHTED
DISSERTATION
Click here for published alumni writing and research
Click here to see our database of doctoral dissertations sorted by author, date, and methodology
Though our ABD students (which stands for complete "all but dissertation") struggle like dissertation students all over the world, at Pacifica the dissertations are a labor of love, a work of soul-making, and never just a mindless mental game or an academic hoop through which to jump. We invite you to read about some of those journeys, and the completed projects, on this page.
DR. DENNY'S ABSTRACT:
The modern medical healing arts are caught in the prevailing scientific paradigm of Western culture, functioning with a biomedical science
that privileges quantity over quality, fragmentation over wholeness,
and matter over spirit. As a result, the emotional, spiritual, and soulful
aspects of healing are often neglected. Addressing this schism, medical schools have included the humanities in education, pastoral workers have become active in hospitals, and psychologists tend to patients undergoing somatic care. Meanwhile, individuals have turned to various forms of alternative or complementary medicine, seeking to incorporate life meaning and spirituality within their illnesses and treatments. Although some individual practicing physicians and other healers have tried to include these alternative methods in standard medical practice, most of the members of the medical profession have kept these soulful practices clearly separate from "scientific" medical care.
Motivated by regrets of my own dissociation of science and spiritualty
during my years of medical education, training, and practice, I have asked how I might inspire myself and others to build a bridge to connect science
Mike Denney wrote a dissertation called Body, soul, and medicine: Confessions of an elder physician
Our students write dissertations linking depth psychology to so many different topical areas. Click here to see some of those topics they have explored.
The Depth Psychology program encourages non-traditional forms of representation in research, including poetry, memoir, film, theatre, coupled with an more traditional academic piece. Click here to read the abstracts from some of those creative formats.
MOST RECENT GRADUATES EARLIER GRADUATES
and spirituality in the medical healing arts. To approach this question, I chose the artistic method in the form of a series of essays. After constructing a thorough theoretical thematic hermeneutic argument outlining the problem, I chose to express the findings through a series of four confessional essays which tell their stories from the heart as well as the mind. With stories of personal experiences in modern medical care, the essays speak through the voice of both elder physician and fledgling depth psychologist and view modern medicine through the lenses of 20th-century depth psychology and its close relationship with complexity science, and quantum theory. In doing so, the essays begin to construct a bridge over which to bring an outdated biomedical science up-to-date. These essays are the first few stones in the construction of that bridge.
