Featured Presenters
Andrew Samuels, PhD, is recognized internationally as one of the foremost political commentators and theorists from the perspectives of psychotherapy and depth psychology. He has worked as a consultant with political leaders, parties and activist groups in several countries, including the United States. He also consults to Britain’s National Health Service. He draws on a wide range of approaches to psyche, including post-Jungian, relational psychoanalytic and humanistic ideas. But he roots his work in citizens’ lived experience, and in what can be learned from therapy work carried out with political awareness. While Andrew does not disguise his background in progressive and left-wing politics and his commitment to diversity and equality, he remains open-minded and celebrates many different takes on social and political issues.
Fanny Brewster PhD, is a Jungian analyst and author of poetry and nonfiction. Her book African Americans and Jungian Psychology: Leaving the Shadows has recently been published by Routledge (2017). A forthcoming book, Archetypal Grief: Slavery’s Legacy of Intergenerational Child Loss is forthcoming later this year. Her poems from Journey: The Middle Passage have recently appeared in the Psychological Perspectives Journal (2016) in which she was Featured Poet. Dr. Brewster is a core faculty member at Pacifica Graduate Institute, the Philadelphia Association of Jungian Analysts and the New York C.G. Jung Foundation. She is a lecturer and workshop presenter on Jungian Psychology related topics and will be a presenter at the San Francisco Institute Public Program, Phantoms and Dreams of the Underground in October, 2017.
Oksana Yakushko, PhD, is the Chair and core faculty in Clinical Psychology department at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Her publications and presentations focus on xenophobia, feminism, and social justice from lens of depth and critical psychology paradigms. She has received awards for her work on human trafficking and immigration, including receiving American Psychological Association’s Presidential Citation in 2007 and being named the Fellow of the American Psychological Association in 2016. Her recent publications include articles on indigenous psychologies and women, including on history of witch-burning as a form of suppression of indigenous and women’s knowledge. In addition, she has written on gendered and cultural unconscious in research, on women’s spirituality, on systematic exclusion of depth psychological perspectives in mainstream psychology, and on ideological paradigms in psychology that promote social oppression (e.g., eugenics, “positive” psychology). She has collaborated with foundations and organizations, which address historical and current xenophobia, including the U.S. Holocaust Museum. She is active in psychoanalytic, humanistic, and feminist organizations that focus on lives and experiences of diverse communities.
Michael Sipiora, PhD, is the program’s Director of Research. He joined the Pacifica faculty after spending over twenty years as a tenured professor at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh where he was an award winning teacher in both their APA approved clinical program in Human Science Psychology, and School for Leadership and Professional Advancement. Before that, he taught psychology, philosophy, and literature at community colleges in Dallas. The author of numerous peer reviewed articles, book chapters, and an edited book, areas of Dr. Sipiora’s teaching and publication include existential-phenomenological psychology and philosophy, archetypal psychology, hermeneutics, classical rhetoric, and narrative theory. He earned a Bachelors and Masters in Philosophy at San Jose State University where his studies focused on phenomenology with an emphasis on the work of Martin Heidegger. His Masters and Doctorial studies in psychology with a concentration in literature were carried out at the University of Dallas. Dr. Sipiora is a licensed clinical psychologist in both Pennsylvania and California, and he has a wide range of clinical experience in both private and community mental health settings. Currently he has a therapy practice in Santa Barbara. While in Pittsburgh, he was co-founder of an organizational development and individual coaching company that worked with small business, non-profits, and educational institutions.
Jason Butler, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist and an assistant professor in the Holistic Counseling department at John F. Kennedy University. He received his doctorate in Clinical Psychology with a specialization in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute and his master’s degree in Transpersonal Psychology from Saybrook University. The title of his doctoral dissertation was Imagining an Archetypal Approach to Psychotherapy and his master’s project was titled The Practice and Doctrine of Lovingkindness Meditation in Mainstream Buddhism and its Applications in Clinical Psychology.His recently published book is entitled Archetypal Psychotherapy: The Clinical Legacy of James Hillman, in the Routledge series on Research in Analytical Psychology and Jungian Studies.
Eva Blodgett, M.A., is a Doctoral Candidate at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Her recent publications and presentations focused on Lacanian and psychoanalytic explorations of xenophobia, immigration, and oppression, including in the lives of survivors of Stalinist persecutions, undocumented immigrants, and immigrant therapists. She has received prestigious mentorship awards in psychoanalysis, including psychoanalytic research and international psychoanalysis. Her dissertation work is focused on examination of xenophobia and anti-immigrant rhetoric utilizing Lacanian discourse analysis.