Phoenix Raine, Ph.D.

The Depth Psychology Department congratulates Dr. Phoenix Raine for her dissertation titled:

"Shall We Gather at the River: A Pedagogy of Healing"

  THE ABSTRACT OF PHOENIX'S DISSERTATION

The Confluence Project, a series of seven memorials created to acknowledge the Indigenous peoples and landscape along the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest, was the inspiration for this dissertation. Individually and collectively, the memorials provided an opportunity to imagine a pedagogy for cross-cultural healing. A phenomenological and heuristic approach to the seven memorials provided the author with the opportunity to imagine a creative proposal for a transformative liberal arts course. The author believes a transformative liberal arts course, informed by a depth psychological approach to anti-oppression, requires educators to consider a therapeutic sensibility to address the historical continuum of oppression. Four elements of depth psychology, and one of education, provided context for such a framing: Archetypal, cultural complex, collective unconscious, imaginal dialogue, and place-based pedagogy, each invoked imagination and generated a creative method to engage students in an arts-based and place-based critical consciousness. Each memorial, imagined as a migratory corridor between the collective unconscious and personal conscious, bridges past with present. The memorials, individually and collectively, also provide an interdisciplinary and intercultural expression. The interconnection of self, other, and environment are inter-contextual s/places of engagement with culturally diverse ways of knowing. In essence, the inquiry reveals the similarities between indigenous psychology, depth psychology, Native American spirituality, ecopsychology, and ecofeminism.

FROM AN INTERVIEW WITH PHOENIX:

Tell us a little bit about how you came to your dissertation topic.

In the spring of 2006 I read about the Confluence Project in a magazine article:

"[Lin’s] work is meant to acknowledge the view of Native Americans who first inhabited the land, to help restore the critical wildlife habitat, and point out through excerpts of text, some discoveries the explorers [Lewis & Clark and Corp of engineers], logged along their way, showing how the land and its creatures have since changed" (Farr, 2006, p. E1).

I was taking two courses, ecopsychology and phenomenology. Both courses came together when I began imagining the memorials as places of cultural healing. Lin’s creative process and Bachelard’s poetic phenomenology were inspirational, offering theoretical elements conducive for my poetic inquiry.

I felt Lin’s (2000) process was the materialization of Bachelard’s watery observations about imagination and water: "For most of my works, I make an initial visit to the site. I cannot force a design; I do not see this process as being under my conscious control. It is a process of percolation, with the form eventually finding its way to the surface" (p. 307).

Lin has gathered at the river, listening into the past through the journals of Lewis & Clark and the voices of the River Peoples, as well as the ecology of place. Bachelard (1942, 2006) complemented her process by stating: "The voices of water are hardly metaphoric at all; the language of the water is a direct poetic reality; streams and rivers provide the sound for mute country landscapes, and do it with strange fidelity; murmuring waters teach birds and men [sic] to sing, speak, and recount; and there is, in short, a community between the speech of water and the speech of man [sic]" (p. 14).

I believe Lin’s creative process represents the confluence of Depth Psychology, Indigenous Psychology, and Ecopsychology.

What was the dissertation process like for you?

The love and passion were there from the beginning and helped sustain my journey. I appreciated the concept of psyche as circumambulatory as my dream life was very active and influential.

What was the most rewarding part of researching and writing your dissertation?

Leaving the process as open as possible and having significant books and articles come to me along the way. An additional reward came afterward when I was teaching a class at the Muckleshoot Tribal College, “Liberatory Psychology and Cultural Healing.” The dissertation became a critical part of being culturally competent.

Anything surprise you about the process?

I had a near death experience that helped to solidify my approach to engaging and writing my dissertation in such a way that it holds both poetic and scholastic expression.

Phoenix (left) and her partner Rachel at the dissertation defense

Phoenix says, "I am grateful to have a supportive and encouraging partner. I took a leap of faith, and quit my staff position at Antioch so I could teach. I have been steadfast in my pursuit of a Ph.D. so I could join in the playground of ideas and meaning making in an academic setting. I feel fortunate to be doing the work that I love. As an adjunct, in a creative environment, I can incorporate Depth Psychology and design courses that I believe engage the imagination while also facilitating cultural healing. I look forward to my classes this summer, 'Literature of the Wounded Healer' as well as returning to the Muckleshoot Tribal College for a course on 'Place-Based Ecoliteracy.' Both classes offer the communities a dialogical opportunity to address who we are in a world that many believe is on the threshold of apocalyptic rupture. I am grateful that the calling of my dissertation provided a breadth and depth of imagination and that Eros and Psyche are actively at play.

“It is imperative to liberate images from ourselves, give them more creative autonomy, and restore the reality of imagination as a procreative and life enhancing function.” (Scott McNiff)

Phoenix (left) with her dissertation advisor Dr. Ed Casey and her dissertation coordinator Dr. Betsy Perluss

Congratulations to Dr. Raine for her upcoming conference presentation at the 5th Annual Vine Deloria Jr. Symposium. Click here to read more about it.