Heesun Kim is a bright presence in our Ph.D. program for Integrative Therapy and Healing Practices, where her studies focus “on exploring the critical connections between psychology, spirituality, and holistic healing practices.” She has recently been honored as a semi-finalist in the Fulbright program. Many alumni of the program have gone on to become winners of the Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize, as well as serving as heads of state. Heesun’s proposal is titled “Jeju Shamanism: Healing Intergenerational Trauma through Collective Mourning” and I’m delighted to discuss it with her.

Angela: Heesun, thank you so much for talking with me. You’ve said that your Fulbright project, if accepted, would “focus on how Jeju shamanism addresses intergenerational trauma and collective mourning as a community healing practice.” Please tell us a little bit about Jeju shamanism and how it intersects with your own family history in Korea. Is it a topic you found during your studies at Pacifica or is it something you’ve been aware of for a long while?

Heesun: Thank you for inviting me, Angela. Jeju is a beautiful island located in the southern part of South Korea. Unlike most of the mainland Korean regions, which have nearly lost their shamanic tradition due to rapid industrialization and western influences, Jeju Island still preserves the shamanic tradition through myths, folksongs, and oral traditions in rituals. The island has a tragic history of a massacre between 1948 and 1954; approximately 30,000 civilians were killed when Korean authorities and right-wing vigilantes, with the US military's compliance and oversight, brutally suppressed a popular uprising.  

Deep Creativity: A Video Interview with Deborah Anne Quibell, Ph.D.

By Angela Borda

“Along the creative’s path, the smallest of things demand our gasp, our loving attention, our fixed gaze, and our compassionate noticing. To gasp is to take in or breathe in the world around us. In depth psychological language this is known as the primary, aesthetic response of the heart.” 

— Deborah, Deep Creativity

In the process of writing the book, we realized we were fleshing out new ways of looking at creativity, new lenses informed by our mutual backgrounds in depth psychology. We compiled these lenses into “The Fifteen Principles of Deep Creativity.”

We chose the word principles to suggest our fundamental thoughts, the underpinnings of the union of depth psychology and creativity.

These are themes rather than definitions; these are convictions rather than truths; these are perspectives rather than facts. They are the way we see the creative world and our place within it, and we offer that vision to you. Take a look at what Deborah has to say about Deep Creativity in her videos below.

Deep Creativity: An Interview with Jennifer Leigh Selig

By Angela Borda

Jennifer is a prolific writer with three screenplays and twenty-two books she has been involved with. Passionate about travel and photography, she is the co-author of Deep Creativity: Seven Ways to Spark Your Creative Spirit and will be co-presenting the Pacifica workshop of the same name with Pacifica scholars Deborah Anne Quibell and Dennis Slattery on March 5–7, 2021. She and Deborah Anne Quibell will also teach a three-month intensive March 8–May 31, 2021. Visit us for more information here. I was delighted to speak with Jennifer, as she is exemplary of Pacifica’s deep-thinking and inquiring spirit.

Angela: What teaching dynamic do you share with Dennis and Deborah and what kind of atmosphere and interaction can participants look forward to between the three of you and with them?

Jennifer: My relationship with Deborah and Dennis is one of the most important and rewarding relationships of my life, and I think that shows up in our teaching dynamics. From the beginning of our collaboration, it was really clear that we respect one another. We each so value what the other two bring—as teachers, as writers, and as human beings. And, there’s a genuine mutual affection for one another, a real love and care for one another that we don’t attempt to hide or to cloak under a veil of professionalism. I think that goes a long way to putting participants at ease, knowing they are in the company of good friends. We learn a lot from our interactions, and we see ourselves as co-learners along with our participants. I look forward to Dennis’ and Deborah’s sessions during the weekend, in the same way I always looked forward to reading their chapters when we were drafting the book. Also, they are both fantastic listeners, so I know that after presenting my sessions, when I open it up to them for discussion, they are going to ask great questions and offer astute comments.

An Interview with Dennis Slattery, Ph.D.

by Angela Borda

Dennis Slattery is a beloved professor emeritus of mythology at Pacifica, with over fifty years of teaching experience and 30+ books published, along with seven books of poetry. He is the co-author of Deep Creativity: Seven Ways to Spark Your Creative Spirit and will be co-presenting the Pacifica workshop of the same name with Pacifica scholars Deborah Anne Quibell, Ph.D., and Jennifer Leigh Selig, Ph.D., on March 5–7, 2021. Visit us for more information here. I felt very privileged to discuss Dennis’s work with him, as he is deeply thoughtful about the liminal realm of imagination and creativity within the context of mythology and depth psychology.

Angela: How does mythology intersect with creativity?

Dennis: Intersect is the right verb to use. The last volume of J. Campbell’s four-part Masks of God is entitled “Creative Mythology.” Myths themselves are creative expressions of the individual/communal soul. The call to create is a call to uncover the myth that is our own, and which communes with other souls. Both require a belief in the invisible forces at work in the world. I think that the unconscious is a creative terrain from which many of our inspirations spring.

Creating is a form of mythologizing ourselves further and becoming more conscious of what that feels like. Creative inspiration comes, in part, from the myth within that we are each living out. Creative expressions fuel that growing awareness.

Curandera and storyteller, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, speaks of depth psychology as a way to “the river beneath the river,” to a place that delves deeper than the surface of things into implicit and nonlinear knowing and broadens the subtle field of intersubjectivity, integrating systems of being. Integratio may be fostered by a restoration of “beginner’s mind” to renew a sense of wonder, openness, feeling, and curiosity.

Perhaps you are aware of something that drives you, breathes you, that has brought you here to inquire about our integrative program and to do so now in this intense time of global uncertainty, paradox, and possibility?

What is speaking to you and through you? Why DPT now?

by Jemma Elliot, MA, LMFT, LPCC, Co-Chair, Counseling Psychology Department

As Co-Chair of the Counseling Psychology Department at Pacifica, it is my joy to support our students as they navigate their education in our MA and PsyD Counseling Psychology Programs. Our program is unique and meaningful – a cauldron of ideas where incredibly diverse individuals, yet like-minded in spirit and focus, come together with an overarching goal to become helping professionals who impact the collective.

My path to a rich clinical and academic career began as a graduate of the MA Counseling Psychology Program myself. Like so many who come to Pacifica, I was always deeply called to be of service. As a survivor of 9/11 in Manhattan in 2001, I learned early in my adulthood about the textures of collective trauma and was propelled on a path to uncover healing ways of being with others. I decided to return to school to pursue an undergraduate degree specifically in Psychology, focusing my research on trauma, and then was led to graduate study at Pacifica, which allowed me to incorporate the tenets that felt most crucial in healing work to me – tenets inclusive of the whole organism, including, importantly, the unconscious.

by Matthew Bennett, PsyD, and Jemma Elliot, MA,, Co-chairs Counseling Psychology Department  

As chairs of the unified Counseling Psychology Department, which includes both the MA and PsyD degrees in Counseling Psychology, we appreciate the energy, focus, and good judgment it takes to apply for and enroll in graduate school. We would like to take this time to describe some of the more valuable, noteworthy, and special aspects of the PsyD program, in the hopes that this will help you make an informed decision about starting your future careers.  These are some of the meaningful ways in which the PsyD in Counseling Psychology Program at Pacifica stands out:

We crosswalk applied clinical practice with the perspectives of depth psychology.  While any effective doctoral degree preparing students for licensure as psychologists trains students in a broad range of skill-sets (such as psychological assessment, theories of psychotherapy and clinical intervention, risk assessment, cultural competence, and principles of psychopathology), Pacifica’s PsyD in Counseling Psychology provides students with relational, imaginal, and creative capacities which enhance each of these.  Depth Psychological models of human psychology encourage the kind of emotional honesty, attunement, curiosity, and cognitive flexibility which allow powerful and effective outcomes.  At the same time, we will help you prepare to hit the ground running in your applied practicum and internship training experiences.

Matthew Bennett, PsyD, Chair, Counseling Psychology Department and Jemma Elliot, MA, LMFT, LPCC, Co-Chair, Counseling Psychology Department

As Chair and Co-Chair of the Counseling Psychology Department at Pacifica, we are often asked, “What makes the MA Counseling Psychology Program at Pacifica unique?” We are hopeful that this letter provides a space to reflect upon that important question.

There are a number of wonderful MA Programs in Counseling Psychology to choose from, and we are proud to count these other programs among our colleagues, collaborating with them in various consortia and in other areas of our professional lives. While all of these programs offer the tools needed for learning clinicians, there are some meaningful ways in which Pacifica’s MA Counseling Psychology Program is unique:

• Focus on Depth Psychology: Above all, Pacifica’s MA Counseling Psychology Program offers a truly unique focus on the interweaving of depth psychology throughout all facets of the curriculum. While students gain education and training in all of the complex content areas required for licensure, they are also simultaneously gaining the opportunity to view this all through a depth psychological lens – a truly unparalleled experience in the world of higher education in Psychology.

by Rica Toribio, M.A., Ed.D. cand. Senior Director of Enrollment Management at Pacifica

There is no feeling as joyous, expansive, and life changing as the moment you get that call or open that letter welcoming you to the right program at the right graduate school. The Admissions team at Pacifica is dedicated to helping you arrive at that moment, and we feel just as excited as our newly accepted students to be giving that call and writing that letter of acceptance. We are delighted to help you hone your vision by discussing our eight programs traversing the core ideas of the humanities, as well as the mythologies of culture, the collective human imagination, and ecological symbiosis. And of course, depth psychology, which is the founding principle of the school and what sets it apart as a truly unique institution.

"All true things change and only those things that change remain true.” C.G. Jung

People are carefully thinking about educational opportunities during this time of radical uncertainty. They hope to strategically find their way through a world of increasing complexity and rapid, unpredictable change. Grasping the nature, order, and the way of the world has long been a goal sought throughout higher education. Today, however, this question is highly problematized and traditional certitudes of the Academy are hotly contested.