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

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.

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.

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.

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

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:

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:

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.

The Community, Liberation, Indigenous, and Eco-Psychologies (CLIE) M.A./Ph.D. specialization at Pacifica brings together scholars who pursue vocations oriented toward social and environmental justice. These efforts are brought together in our annual publication, Hearing Voices. We'd like to introduce you to the work of Katie Robinson, our 2nd year CLIE student, poet, and sexuality educator.

On Queerness As Praxis

By Katie Robinson

If part of decoloniality is about naming what hurts and why, equal part must also be about screaming what feels good and why. Queers raised in a western colonial and neocolonial context, in all
our vibrant multiplicity, have always been good at this, having continually broken from, acted against, and thrived outside of a colonial expectation and construct based in erotophobia. Many of us have decided to live and build community around a full bodied, “yes, this!” in the direction of pleasure as an authentic self and with others.