A guest post by Kerry Methner, PhD / CASA Magazine, www.casasb.com. Dr. Methner's article appeared in the November 14th edition of Casa Magazine.

Pacifica on Lambert Road, Gallery

Mythic Threads: Art, Healing, & Magic in Bali

In a land where the veil between life and death and between the sacred and mundane is porous and sometimes transparent, Kansas native and local resident Pamela Bjork sought solace as she grieved her father’s passing. That land was the island of Bali where she visited for the first time in 1995. That trip was a seed, growing over the next 20 years, bearing fruit in the form of a degree from Pacifica Graduate Institute and now an exhibition that officially opens with a celebration on Saturday, November 22nd from 2 to 5pm - Mythic Threads: Art, Healing, & Magic in Bali.

“An unbidden invitation arrived in the mail one summer day shortly after my father’s death in 1995,” Bjork recalled. “It read, ‘The Healers of Bali.’” Soon she was on her way. “The busyness and warmth of the people, visits to strange and exotic healers, multitudes of offerings, vibrant colors of textiles, sacred ceremonies, and performance everywhere offered a new perspective on how to live and helped assuage my grief,” Bjork shared.

Bjork is a 2012 graduate of the Mythological Studies Program at Pacifica. Her fascination with Balinese culture and mythology led her to the topic of her dissertation, Hospitality of Color: Healing Presence in Ceremonial Balinese Textiles. This exhibition follows, illustrating the living myth of a contemporary culture, allowing the viewer to follow in the footsteps of Bjork’s pilgrimage to see living stories in the images and artifacts she brought home. Bjork will talk about her experiences and learning at 2:30pm.

A guest post by Ginette Paris. The following is excerpted from her acclaimed book Heartbreak: New Approaches to Healing - Recovering from lost love and mourning. Read Part I.

§  The neuroscience of bereavement

Much of neuroscience implies ultra-specialized research in the lab which is then communicated in its specific jargon. For example, when referring to the human capacity for compassion, neuroscientists define compassion as “shared neural circuits for mentalizing about the self and others”.  I translate their jargon to explain how heartbreak messes with our brain.  I use the metaphors of crocodile, puppy and wise human to differentiate the three levels of reactions and explain how to move from one level to the other.

A video post with Lionel Corbett, M.D.

"Psychotherapists who are interested in Depth Psychology are living in a professional world that is dominated by cognitive behavioral approaches....Human relationships are much too complicated to be fully contained in the net of empirical research. Measurement is certainly not an appropriate approach to the unconscious. The unconscious is much too slippery for quantitative methods and it's certainly no use in the spiritual dimension which is the dimension that jungian psychology is concerned with. It's important to remember that all theories of psychotherapy are based on a certain view of human nature and a certain

A guest post by Ginette Paris. The following is excerpted from her acclaimed book Heartbreak: New Approaches to Healing - Recovering from lost love and mourning.

A guest post by Dennis Patrick Slattery
Dr. Slattery's hometown of New Braunfels, Texas is experiencing drought like so many other cities around the world. Below is his commentary to community members who caution "too much development".

            While many “Letters to the Editor” of the Herald-Zeitung (New Braunfels, Texas) express a valid caution of too much development, given the immediate and longer range necessity of conserving water in Texas, they have failed to touch the deeper question: what myth is it that compels the engines of growth? Until the underlying myth that shapes the thinking of what a people value is addressed, the problem stays above ground and tends to draw to itself ways of fixing something. Fixing as solution is also a mythic structure, but it too is a limited patch work.

The texts and inspiration behind the newest publication on James Hillman.

A Tribute to James Hillman: Reflections on a Renegade Psychologist, eds. Jennifer Leigh Selig and Camilo Francisco Ghorayeb. Mandorla Books, 2014. Print.

A guest post by Dr. Jennifer Selig

A guest post by Dr. Jennifer Selig

It was with great pleasure that I recently attended The 2^nd Annual James Hillman symposium City and Soul at the Dallas Institute for Humanities and Culture. On the Institute’s website they describe their mission: “For over thirty years, the Dallas Institute has conducted original programs that enrich and strengthen the cultural heart of our great city.”

We are excited to have our first open lecture for the Pacifica Post be Dr. Christine Downing's lecture from her class Greek and Mythology I in Pacifica's M.A./Ph.D. Mythological Studies program. Click the play button arrow below to listen to the full lecture.

A guest post by Fujio Mandeville

There are many ways to think of and experience violence: we can consider it as war, brutal acts upon our person; as passive forms of violence that is expressed as oppression, impoverishment, or the marginalization of those in a particular class, gender or ethnicity; or as disturbances within our personal and collective psyche. Regardless how we view this phenomenon, we cannot ignore it nor can we resist it. Violence, whatever its form, is complex and mythic -- deeply embedded within our psyche.

1. Find out if the program you are considering for your master’s degree is from a qualifying degree-granting institution. http://www.bbs.ca.gov/app-reg/mft_schools.shtml
2. Become familiar with the website BBS, which stands for Board of Behavioral Sciences. This is the board that oversees licensure in California.
3. Does the program you are looking to attend prepare you to sit for the LPCC AND the LMFT exams? Do you want the option to sit for both licensure exams?