| How does the state of homelessness in the United States inform the therapist's ability to treat loss? Using the research methodologies of heuristics and participatory epistemology, and through the lens of depth psychology, archetypal amplification is used through the Holy Beggar, Holy Thief, Trickster as Aimless Wanderer, the Scapegoat, and the Soul of the American Experience to examine homelessness as a counterpoint to rampant materialism and consumerism, as it manifests in American culture. The historical figures Harriet Tubman, Johnny Appleseed are used as living examples of the Holy Beggar and Holy Thief. The author traces links between rampant consumerism and the rise of depression and emptiness in America, concluding that physical and metaphorical homelessness appear as a state of Jungian alchemical transformation, helping therapists and clients to reframe loss as a deeper spiritual opportunity for the individual, the community, and the nation within a living and interacting cosmos. |
