| Disconnection from place is traumatic, creating dissociation and alienation. Reconnecting with place represents an important edge of depth psychology, acknowledging such psychopathology, the self's need to relate to place, and the psychic reality of the more-than-human world. This thesis draws on the body of depth, archetypal, and ecopsychological thought on disconnection from and reconnection to place. Using participatory epistemological and hermeneutic methodology, specific depth psychotherapeutic practices (terrapsychology, archetypal geography, imaginal interaction) are explored in addressing the author's Orange County, California home. Cultural, personal, and archetypal stories of reconnection are interwoven through the exploration of Orange County's anima loci, placefield motifs, dreams, synchronicities, local history, and local psychopathology, particularly as expressed by the myth of Erysichthon and Mestra. The myth becomes a key for exploring reconnection to place as a process of recovery from dissociation and reconnection to the ensouled body of self and world. |
