The Work of Creative Maladjustment: Martin Luther King, Jr.

Posted by Nikole Hollenitsch on Feb 6, 2015 2:38:00 PM

" Modern psychology has a word that is probably used more than any other word in modern psychology. It is the word 'maladjusted.' This word is the ringing cry to modern child psychology. Certainly, we all want to avoid the maladjusted life. In order to have real adjustment within our personalities, we all want the well‐adjusted life in order to avoid neurosis, schizophrenic personalities.

But I say to you, my friends, as I move to my conclusion, there are certain things in our nation and in the world which I am proud to be maladjusted and which I hope all men of good‐will will be maladjusted until the good societies realize. I say very honestly that I never intend to become adjusted to segregation and discrimination. I never intend to become adjusted to religious bigotry. I never intend to adjust myself to economic conditions that will take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few. I never intend to adjust myself to the madness of militarism, to self‐defeating effects of physical violence…"

On Sunday, January 18, 2015, Pacifica Graduate Institute hosted a lecture and panel discussion honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the Ladera Lane Campus. The event was co-sponsored by Pacifica’s Alumni Association and the Martin Luther King Jr. Committee of Santa Barbara. Below is the taped live event.

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Posted in: Current Affairs, Social Justice

Up Against the Wall Re-Imagining the U.S.-Mexico Border

Posted by Nikole Hollenitsch on Dec 29, 2014 12:24:00 PM

A guest post by Dr. Mary Watkins and Dr. Ed Casey. The following is excerpted from their insightful book Up Against the Wall Re-Imagining the U.S.-Mexico Border

Introduction
I

We live in an era of forced migration with unprecedented global dimensions. How are we to peaceably and justly co-exist together -- those of us who must leave our homes forever to meet our human needs, and the rest of us who find our neighborhoods, towns, and cities changing as a result of these necessary migrations? In particular, how can we create a compassionate and just response to new neighbors who have come to the United States to find work or asylum?  We offer this book as an invitation to a sustained reflection on these questions.

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Posted in: Current Affairs, Connecting Cultures, Community, Liberation, Indigenous & Ecopsychology

POUND YOUR CHEST, EVERYONE – PART II; Creator Archetype

Posted by Nikole Hollenitsch on Dec 8, 2014 3:21:00 PM

A guest post by Dr. Jennifer Selig

Deborah Quibell is many things, but she is archetypally a Creator. At least that’s how I know her. I met her several years back when she entered into the newly launched Jungian and Archetypal Studies program at Pacifica. I am now her dissertation chair, which is a distinct pleasure because part of how Deborah creates is through writing. She’s good. She’s damn good.

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Posted in: Current Affairs, archetypes, Jungian & Archetypal Studies

POUND YOUR CHEST, EVERYONE – PART I

Posted by Nikole Hollenitsch on Dec 8, 2014 3:18:00 PM

A guest post by Dr. Jennifer Selig

One of the greatest joys of teaching at Pacifica is working with an amazing student body. Our students awe and amaze us. They challenge and create us. They push and pull us. They keep us awake at night and awaken us in the morning and call us forward during the day to be the best that we can be because they are striving to be their best selves and thinking we might have something, just a little something, to offer those selves.

And sometimes, they supersede us.

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Posted in: Current Affairs, archetypes, Jungian & Archetypal Studies

Growth: When a Myth No Longer Serves

Posted by Nikole Hollenitsch on Nov 7, 2014 6:38:00 AM

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.

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Posted in: Current Affairs, Mythology