Phil Garrity is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology with an Emphasis in Depth Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute. He recently had a piece in the book Gemini and the Sacred: Twins and Twinship in Religion and Mythology. I’m delighted to speak with him about twinship, otherness, and his work and experience with critical illnesses.

Angela: You recently contributed an epilogue, along with your twin brother, to the book Gemini and the Sacred: Twins and Twinship in Religion and Mythology, edited by Kimberley C. Patton, who is your former professor at Harvard Divinity School. Tell us a little about the book and also what it was like to co-write the epilogue with your twin.

Camille Jarmie Harris, Ph.D. has recently joined the faculty at Pacifica in the Clinical Psychology program. This is Part II in the conversation I had with Dr. Harris about her work and teaching in hermeneutic analysis.

Angela: What is it like working with infants in a therapeutic setting, since as you say, they cannot thrive without being in relation to the family?

Camille: From Ages 0 to 5, I work within the context of the family, often times supporting the parents to understand their children and work through challenges they’re experiencing themselves so they can be present and available to their baby. A birthing parent and family in the post-partum period might be experiencing a whole range of emotional experience that can be related the stress of pregnancy, birth, and psychological transition into parenting, and can sometimes lead to emotional challenges that affect ability to interact and connect with baby. There are diverse expectations about what this time is “supposed” to be like that are informed by personal experience as well as by the larger context of culture. So I help parents to understand the challenges they might be having, understanding who this baby is, to learn to trust their intuition and empower them to understand themselves and their own children in terms of the behavior they see. I work to empower a sense of knowing in those early years.

Camille Jarmie Harris, Ph.D. has recently joined the faculty at Pacifica in the Clinical Psychology program. I’m excited to hear more about her work and teaching in hermeneutic analysis.

Angela: We share an undergraduate alma mater in UCSC (Go Banana Slugs!), where you majored in psychology with an emphasis in social psychology, then to Portland for a Master’s in Community Mental Health Counseling with an emphasis in Children and Adolescents. And this led to your Ph.D. here at Pacifica, in Clinical Psychology with an emphasis in depth psychology. I think it’s informative for potential enrollees to see the widely different paths by which people arrive at Pacifica. Is there a theme or inspiration that carried you through your academic journey and what most appealed to you about the Clinical program here?

What is an archetype? On first hearing the term, you might think it means something like “stereotype.” But archetypes are far richer and more interesting than that, and provide one of the foundational aspects of Jungian depth psychology. One of the earliest beginnings of the idea may be Plato’s writings in the fourth century B.C.E.. Although he did not use the actual term archetype (in Greek, “arche” original, and “typos” form), he did use the term eidos, translated as either Form or Idea. But it was not until the Swiss psychologist, and the founder of analytical psychology, C. G. Jung took up archetypes in works such as The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious in the first half of the 20^th century that it came into prominence in theoretical and psychological discourse.

As Keiron Le Grice, Pacifica’s Co-Chair of the Jungian and Archetypal Studies specialization of the Depth Psychology program, describes Jung’s view of archetypes, “[They] are the universal principles, patterns, and powers that move us all and shape our lives from the collective unconscious—the containing psychological matrix underlying consciousness. They are the governing principles in the background of experience that together comprise a kind of thematic framework within which our lives unfold. The archetypes manifest within and through our thoughts and feelings, drives and desires, and through circumstances and events in the world. They are not causes in the usual sense, but they are enacted by and revealed through causal chains of events.”

Jung focused primarily on a few foundational archetypes, including the shadow, anima, animus, and the Self. Taking myths and symbols as expressions of the psyche, and therefore reflective of the psyche, Jung identified a number of other archetypes, which Le Grice describes as “the hero, the mother, the child, the trickster, the archetype of the spirit (of which the wise old man is one form), rebirth, and Dionysus.” These have trickled down in popular perception into categories such as the sage, the innocent, the explorer, the rebel, the hero, the trickster, the lover, the caregiver, etc.

Evolution and Growth in the Integrative Therapy and Healing Program: An Interview with Juliet Rohde-Brown, Ph.D.

World-Bridging and Shapeshifting: Touching Base with Mary A. Wood, Ph.D.

Mary A. Wood, Ph.D., is the Chair of the M.A. Depth Psychology and Creativity with Emphasis in the Arts and Humanities program, which is currently accepting applications for Spring 2023 and Fall 2023 (visit the program here). She will be presenting the webinar “World-Bridging and Shapeshifting: Soul, Image, and Imagination in Gloria Anzaldúa, James Hillman, and C.G. Jung” on January 13th. I’m delighted to speak with Mary about her upcoming webinar and also about her program.

Soulcraft™: A Guide to the Numinous Depths

An Interview with Brian Stafford, M.D., M.P.H.

“Soulcraft skills and practices evoke the world-shifting experience of soul encounter —the revelation of our unique mythopoetic identity, an identity expressed through symbol and metaphor, image and dream, archetype and myth, an identity embodied in a mysterious story that whispers to us in moments of expanded awareness and exquisite aliveness.”

“Introduction to Soulcraft™” with Doug Van Houten and Brian Stafford will be a zoom workshop from Pacifica, October 28-30, 2022. For more information, visit our website. Brian Stafford is “a guide to the wilderness of nature and soul” and “an agent of cultural awakening and transformation.” I’m delighted to be speaking with him.

Cultural Complexes and the Mythopoetic Imagination in the 21^st Century: An Interview with Thomas Singer, Ph.D.

Dr. Thomas Singer will be giving a keynote presentation, “Portals to the Imaginal in a Digital Era: Cultural Complexes and the Mythopoetic Imagination in the 21^st Century,” for Pacifica’s upcoming event, “Portals to the Imaginal: Re-Visioning Depth Psychology for the 21^st Century,” on October 7-9, 2022. An immersive learning event in celebration of the campus re-opening of Pacifica. For more details, visit us here.

Having come through the pandemic as a strong community at Pacifica, there is a delight and a joy in convening once again on campus for the 2022-23 school year, which our reopening conference, “Portals to the Imaginal: Re-Visioning Depth Psychology for the 21st Century”, will celebrate. Emily Chow-Kambitsch, Co-Chair and Associate Core Faculty in our Mythological Studies program, will be presenting a paper on “Women’s Memoirs in Greek Tragedy,” as well as facilitating “Mythic Meditation: Labyrinth.” I’m delighted to be speaking to Emily about her work.

Angela: Let’s begin with the thing that first caught my eye and imagination, the labyrinth. I count visiting the labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral, cast in the colors of stained glass reflections, as one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. Yet that is a representation of the labyrinth that is far from the mysterious maze in which one might become lost, might never emerge, and beware the Minotaur lurking at the heart of it. Do you conceive of the labyrinth as a metaphor for the psyche, that when we explore within, we may expect to meet the mystery, become lost, and face what we fear? Why would anyone set foot into a maze they might not emerge from?

Dylan Hoffman, Ph.D., is a relatively new addition to the faculty of Pacifica’s Jungian & Archetypal Studies program. I’m excited to learn more about his perspective and teaching.

Angela: You began your career at Pacifica in our M.A./Ph.D. program in Jungian & Archetypal Studies (DJA). What attracted you to Pacifica, and in particular the study of Archetypes?