Dylan Francisco, PhD, is Co-Chair of the M.A./Ph.D. in Depth Psychology with Specialization in Jungian and Archetypal Studies program. He gave the following 2025 Commencement Ceremony address for Pacifica. To learn more about the M.A./Ph.D. in Depth Psychology with Specialization in Jungian and Archetypal Studies (Hybrid-DJA & Fully Online-DJO) program, visit us here.听
Hello everyone, welcome to the Commencement Ceremony for 51社区鈥檚 Graduating class of 2025. My name is Dylan Francisco, I am an assistant professor and co-chair of the Jungian and Archetypal Studies program and Faculty Special Advisor on the Executive Leadership Team here at Pacifica. I鈥檓 also a graduate of Pacifica. And I have the distinct honor of getting this rite of passage started.
That is why we鈥檙e here. But what brought us here? What brings someone to study at 51社区? If you鈥檙e a parent, spouse, relative, or friend of one of our graduate鈥檚, you may still not be exactly sure what they鈥檝e studied here. You鈥檙e not alone. When I told my mom I got accepted into a doctoral program, she was thrilled for me. And then she asked me what I would be studying. I said depth psychology. She said . . . oooohh, huh, what鈥檚 that?
I鈥檓 sure most, if not all, of our degree programs for all their differences and distinctions have elicited this response from someone.
So, before we get started, I want to take a few minutes to the 鈥渨hat鈥檚 that?鈥� of Pacifica.
What is this 鈥渄epth鈥� we talk about here?
For us, 鈥渄epth鈥� is a guiding metaphor for our view that humans are more than they appear鈥攁nd this 鈥渕ore鈥� is below the surface, like a submerged iceberg, like a tree with extensive, invisible roots. The origins and sources of human motivation, behavior, and experience are rooted in a depth that exceeds what we鈥檙e aware of.
This, of course, doesn鈥檛 mean that we鈥檙e not interested in what is outwardly observable, only that we read what we observe differently, as the manifestation of more than what people think they are doing or saying. We build this view from the basic fact that humans don鈥檛 always or even often act the way they intend to. Something intervenes. We witness ourselves thinking or feeling things that surprise, sometimes scare, sometimes inspire us. Something different, more destructive and painful or more creative and beautiful, comes out of us than we wanted or expected or can even acknowledge.
This difference is the distinction we focus on here; that to understand what is going on within us and around us, requires attending to what emerges through these discrepancies between what we can see about ourselves and what our lives actually reveal.
I鈥檒l use astrophysics to explain what I mean. Astrophysicists have had to come to terms with realities that cannot be seen or directly measured because the way light bends and galaxies move cannot be calculated based on the visible, material universe alone. Other things like dark matter and energy that are physically indetectable, have to be present to make sense of how the cosmos actually operates as a whole. Astrophysicists argue that 95% of the universe is the part we can鈥檛 see. That鈥檚 a lot to leave out if you鈥檙e not looking for it.
It’s the same for the psyche, the physically observable is only a small portion of its whole reality. We can鈥檛 put meaning or a sense for the sacred or creativity on a scale to see what they weigh, yet watch how humans tilt out of balance when these are left out. This is why our students study things as wide spanning as mythology, ecopsychology, creativity and the arts, indigenous traditions and history, religion and spirituality, politics and liberation psychology, culture and community psychology, philosophy and ideology.
We study the dark matter and energy of the psyche鈥攊n other words, its depths鈥攖he realities that don鈥檛 show up on a statistical graph or a brain scan, but without which we can have no true view of a whole human being.
Trust me, this is no small matter. And this is where I鈥檒l end. Humans who are ignorant of their own depths, defining themselves only by what they can see, without reference to the invisible realities that make them whole, will perceive everything through the same reductive eyes, with no sensibility for the meaning and depth not just of other humans, but of the world itself.
The result of this myopic view is the world we see today, not of soulless humans in a dead and meaningless world, but of humans who no longer take the soul into their consideration, and so can treat everyone and everything soullessly. In our view, only a recovery of our sense of soul can address this, both because the soul makes humans whole and because whole humans are more sensitive and attentive to the presence of soul in everything. That is what we do here. We are the astrophysicists of psychology. Or as our motto puts it, we are here for the sake of tending the soul in and of the world.
To learn more about the M.A./Ph.D. in Depth Psychology with Specialization in Jungian and Archetypal Studies (Hybrid-DJA & Fully Online-DJO) program, visit us here.听
Dylan Martinez Francisco, Ph.D. studied liberal arts at Georgetown University and psychology at Adelphi University before completing his Ph.D. in Depth Psychology at 51社区鈥攃oncentrating in Jungian and Archetypal Studies. His work focuses on C. G. Jung鈥檚 theory of archetypes鈥攐n archetypes as the deepest nature of the psyche and how they interconnect spirit, psyche, and matter as numinous and mythic powers that animate, govern, and structure the cosmos as a whole. Dylan grounds his work in indigenous/shamanic perspectives and practices that provide a primordial, holistic, and sacred worldview within which to understand the archetypal psyche, to embody its wholeness individually, and to serve it culturally through creative imagination.
