Org Psyche Archetype

Running head: SEEING THROUGH TO THE ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHE
Seeing Through to the Organizational Psyche:

An Archetypal Analysis
A dissertation submitted
by
Laura Franklin Chisholm
to
Pacifica Graduate Institute
in partial fulfillment of
the degree requirements for the
degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in
Depth Psychology
with emphasis in
Somatic Studies
This dissertation has been

accepted for the faculty of
Pacifica Graduate Institute by:
Dr. Elizabeth Nelson, Chair
Dr. Sabine Oishi, Reader
Dr. John Corlett, External Reader

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SEEING THROUGH TO THE ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHE iii
Abstract
Seeing Through to the Organizational Psyche:
An Archetypal Analysis
by
Laura Franklin Chisholm
A case study conducted under the rubric of integral inquiry, this research explores the
application of Jungian and archetypal psychology to the growth process of an
organization. Drawing upon analysis of public documents using Corlett and Pearson’s
Archetype of Organization model, it identifies the Hero, Ruler, and Sage as the
archetypes most active within the organizational psyche of the Oregon Public Health
Division and the Jester, Explorer, Creator, and Caregiver as archetypes in the
organizational shadow. Focus group discussion data characterizes these archetypes and
contributes to specific recommendations for how this archetypal analysis could inform
the agency’s development and modernization. Guided by Hillman’s process of “seeing
through,” further analysis provides alchemical and mythological perspectives on the
agency’s organizational psyche informed by metaphorical analysis of documents and
focus group data, the somatic and emotional responses of researcher and participants, and
the researcher’s dream and self-generated mandala images. This inquiry demonstrates
that archetypal analysis can provide a valuable and unusual perspective on an agency, a
nuanced opportunity for an organization to “know thyself” not available by means of
conventional public health program evaluations or organizational assessments.
Keywords: archetype, organization, integral inquiry, public health, Jung, Hillman

SEEING THROUGH TO THE ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHE iv
For Mom and Dad, who showed me the path.
For Bruce, who walked with me.

SEEING THROUGH TO THE ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHE v
Table of Contents
Chapter 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................... 1
Introduction to the Research Topic ................................................................................. 1
Background ..................................................................................................................... 2
Relevance of the Topic for Depth Psychology ............................................................... 5
Researcher’s Relationship to the Topic .......................................................................... 8
Definition of Terms....................................................................................................... 11
The Organization Under Study: The Oregon Public Health Division .......................... 15
Statement of the Research Problem and Question ........................................................ 16
Chapter 2. Literature Review ............................................................................................ 18
Approaches to Organizational Change ......................................................................... 19
Bolman and Deal’s Four-Frame Model .................................................................... 20
Chin and Benne’s Three Strategies, and Corlett’s Proposed Fourth ........................ 24
Archetypes: Their Characteristics and Conceptual Origin ........................................... 25
The Confluence of Archetype and Organization .......................................................... 30
Archetypes and the Organizational Psyche................................................................... 34
Organizations and the Archetype of Continuous Improvement ................................... 46
Organizational Renewal and the Public Health Identity Crisis .................................... 50
Precedents for Archetypal Organizational Analysis of Public Health .......................... 53
Summary ....................................................................................................................... 56
Chapter 3. Methodology ................................................................................................... 57
Research Approach ....................................................................................................... 57
Research Methodology ................................................................................................. 57

SEEING THROUGH TO THE ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHE vi
Integral Inquiry: A Transpersonal Approach ............................................................ 58
Ontological Stance .................................................................................................... 59
Major Methodological Influences from Depth Psychology...................................... 60
Overview of the Research Process ................................................................................ 62
Participants .................................................................................................................... 65
Materials ....................................................................................................................... 68
Research Procedures ..................................................................................................... 69
Data Collection ......................................................................................................... 69
Data Analysis ............................................................................................................ 71
Ethical Considerations .................................................................................................. 76
Limitations and Delimitations of the Study .................................................................. 81
Organization of the Study ............................................................................................. 83
Chapter 4. Document Analysis and Focus Group Findings .............................................. 86
Archetypes Active Within the Organizational Psyche.................................................. 88
Overall Archetype Expression and Balance ............................................................. 93
Archetype Word Cloud Analysis .............................................................................. 96
Focus Group Discussion Findings .......................................................................... 102
Organizational Recommendations .............................................................................. 131
Preliminary Recommendations ............................................................................... 131
Recommendations from Focus Groups ................................................................... 134
Answering the Research Questions: A Summary of Findings.................................... 137
Chapter 5. Findings from Transferential Data ................................................................ 140
Emotional and Somatic Data from Participants .......................................................... 140

SEEING THROUGH TO THE ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHE vii
Findings from the Researcher’s Dream, Mandala, and Journal Data ......................... 146
Summary ..................................................................................................................... 155
Chapter 6. Spiraling Inward and Seeing Through .......................................................... 157
Examination of Tools.................................................................................................. 159
Interiorizing................................................................................................................. 161
Personal Archetypal Analysis ................................................................................. 165
The Wisdom of Dream Images ............................................................................... 166
Guidance from Mandala Images ............................................................................. 168
Psychologizing and Mythologizing ............................................................................ 170
Balancing the Warrior/Hero with Relationship ...................................................... 171
The Trauma of the Ruler and the Ruled.................................................................. 175
Breaking Down the Ivory Tower ............................................................................ 181
Making a Place for the Jester in the Ruler’s Court ................................................. 185
A Return to Ideas ........................................................................................................ 188
Implications................................................................................................................. 191
References ....................................................................................................................... 193
Appendix A. List of Analyzed Texts .............................................................................. 214
Appendix B. Archetype Coding Matrix .......................................................................... 216
Appendix C. Archetype Word Clouds ............................................................................ 219
Appendix D. Personal Archetypal Analysis ................................................................... 227
Appendix E. Baseline Analysis of OPHD’s Organizational Archetypes ....................... 229
Appendix F. Mandala Images ......................................................................................... 231

SEEING THROUGH TO THE ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHE viii
The style used throughout this dissertation is in accordance with the Publication Manual
of the American Psychological Association (6th Edition, 2009), and Pacifica Graduate
Institute’s Dissertation Handbook (2018-2019)

SEEING THROUGH TO THE ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHE ix
List of Figures
Figure 1. Frequency of archetypal themes expressed within OPHD modernization
documents, by quadrant………...……………...………….…………..............................89
Figure 2. Distribution of archetype frequency between and within Archetype of
Organization quadrants..…………………………………………………………….…..90
Figure C1. Hero word cloud………………………………………………….…….......222
Figure C2. Hero shadow word cloud……………………………………………...…....222
Figure C3. Magician word cloud…………………………………………….………....223
Figure C4. Revolutionary word cloud…………………………………………….........223
Figure C5. Ruler word cloud…………………………………………………………...224
Figure C6. Ruler shadow word cloud……………………………………………..........224
Figure C7. Caregiver word cloud…………………………………...……...……….….225
Figure C8. Creator word cloud……………………………………………...……....….225
Figure C9. Sage word cloud………………………………………...………...…….….226
Figure C10. Sage shadow word cloud………………………………………...…….….226
Figure C11. Explorer word cloud………………………………………………........…227
Figure C12. Innocent word cloud…………………………………………………....…227
Figure C13. Everyperson word cloud…………………………………………….....….228
Figure C14. Everyperson shadow word cloud………………………………...….….…228
Figure C15. Lover word cloud……………………………………………….…………229
Figure C16. Jester word cloud……………………………………………………..…...229
Figure F1. It’s Complicated……………………………………………………..…..….234
Figure F2. Untitled……………………………………………………………….….….234

SEEING THROUGH TO THE ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHE x
Figure F3. Becoming the Phoenix…………………………………………..………….234
Figure F4. The Eye is the Storm………………………………………………..………234
Figure F5. Chunky Swirly/Heart of Green…………………………………..…………235
Figure F6. Chunky Swirly II/The Eyes of the Storm…………………………...………235
Figure F7. Armistice…………………………………………………………...……….235
Figure F8. Life/Death Spiral………………………………………………..…….…….235
Figure F9. Untitled……………………………………………………………...………236

.
Figure F10. The Wheel of Life………………………………………….……..……….236
Figure F11. Variations on a Ruptured Eardrum…………………………….….………236
Figure F12. The Light in the Darkness……………………………………...………….236
Figure F13. The Light of Great Fires to the North…………………………..…………237
Figure F14. The End and the Beginning………………………………………..………237
Figure F15. The Nameless One…………………………………………….…………..237
Figure F16. Planet Dissertation…………………………………………….…….…….237
Figure F17. It’s Complicated/Jellyfish Gonads…………………………….…………..238
Figure F18. CloudShieldScarab…………………………………………….…………..238
Figure F19. Eye of the Needle/Butterfly Wing…………………………………………238
Figure F20. The Light in the Darkness…………………………………………………238
Figure F21. Pinwheel/Catherine Wheel/Swastik…………………………….…………239
Figure F22. Heart of Gold…………………………………………………..…………..239
Figure F23. Eye of the Storm………………………………………………..………….239
Figure F24. Chaos and Order……………………………………………………...……239
Figure F25. Finity and Infinity…………………………………………………......…..240

SEEING THROUGH TO THE ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHE xi
Figure F26. Shield of the Tribe…………………………………………………...…….240
Figure F27. Purple Heart of Gold………………...………….…………………………240
Figure F28. Perspective……………………………..…….……………………………240
Figure F29. The Eye of the Needle……………………..………………….…………...241
Figure F30. Sky Grandmother/Bridging the Gap….…..……………………………….241

SEEING THROUGH TO THE ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHE 1
Chapter 1. Introduction
Carl Jung’s analytical psychology explains individuation as a person’s lifelong
process of transformation and development on both conscious and unconscious levels.
The founder of archetypal psychology, James Hillman, articulated a psychological
process of “seeing through” that enables this developmental process by “moving through
the literal to the metaphorical” and providing a means to approach the individuation
process from the perspectives of archetype and mythology (1975, p. 149). This inquiry
explores the application of these perspectives to the growth process of an organization.
By means of a case study, it seeks to identify archetypal patterns of attitude and behavior
active within the organizational psyche of the Oregon Public Health Division (OPHD),
the branch of state government charged with the task of preventing disease and
promoting the health of Oregonians. Conducted under the rubric of integral inquiry, this
research investigates how seeing through surface appearances into archetypal and
mythological perspectives may contribute to the enrichment of organizational
development within state government by increasing organizational self-knowledge.
Introduction to the Research Topic
The vision of OPHD is “lifelong health for all people in Oregon” and its mission
is “promoting health and preventing the leading causes of death, disease and injury in
Oregon” (Oregon Public Health Division, 2016a). However, like many state public
health departments in the U.S., OPHD faces major challenges to its ability to fulfill this
role effectively. These include insufficient funding, outdated data sources, an aging
workforce, and emerging public health threats (DeSalvo, O’Carroll, Koo, Auerbach, &
Monroe, 2016). The public health system in Oregon, which includes county public health
authorities, the public health authorities of the nine sovereign federally recognized tribes
within Oregon, and numerous other public and private organizations in addition to
OPHD, has been described as a “patchwork quilt” of unevenly distributed resources and
infrastructure (Berk Consulting, 2016, p. iii).
In response to these challenges, the public health system in the state of Oregon is
in the midst of profound change. A comprehensive modernization process is underway,
which has the potential to increase efficiency of function and enhance equity by ensuring
that basic public health services, resources, and protections are available to all people in
the state.
From a Jungian perspective, the impetus to begin this process of public health
modernization in Oregon may be viewed as a crisis of identity within OPHD and county
public health authorities. This crisis has the potential to spur a profound process of
introspection and reinvention. Jung (1931/2014) noted how existential crises of midlife
hold great promise for supporting personal development (individuation) through the
integration of unconscious material into consciousness. At such times, he noted, it is
essential to look within and to uncover and analyze patterns of function and dysfunction
within the individual psyche.
Background
In the last two decades, reports about the U.S. public health system from the
Institute of Medicine (2008, 2012) have indicated a distinct need for introspection,
analysis, and improvement. Federal and state public health authorities are in
organizational disarray, lack sufficient financial and human resources, and need
restructuring. DeSalvo et al., (2016) have called for profound modernization of public
health practice. This would adapt to changes in health trends, including the shift of
leading causes of death and disease away from infectious agents and toward preventable
causes such as poor nutrition, sedentary lifestyles, and the use and misuse of tobacco,
alcohol, opioids, and other addictive substances. However, to shift a public health system
away from outdated areas of focus and revamp and retool major government
bureaucracies requires vision, leadership, and resources.
Change in state public health organizations is already underway, in part due to the
effect of national health system reform trends. The passage of the Affordable Care Act in
2010 established Accountable Care Organizations (known in Oregon as Coordinated Care
Organizations) and dramatically decreased the number of people in the United States
without health insurance (Office of the Press Secretary, 2016). These changes have
shifted public health away from its former role as a medical care safety net provider.
New funding mechanisms that pay for quality care and better patient outcomes rather
than volume of service delivery have likewise shifted the focus of publicly funded health
care toward disease prevention and health promotion, areas which have traditionally been
the purview of public health. Moreover, major causes of premature death and
disability—tobacco use, lack of physical activity, poor nutrition, accidents, addiction, and
personal violence—are now widely acknowledged as preventable and related to
behaviors that are strongly influenced by environments rather than by access to medical
care (Frieden, 2010). This evolution of thought, encapsulated in Frieden’s health impact
pyramid, has empowered public health to take a strong role in development of policy and
systems approaches that emphasize “contextual changes that create healthier defaults” (p.
591) such as smoke-free public spaces; communities designed to promote physical
activity and improved nutrition; and taxation of sugary beverages, tobacco, and alcohol.
Poised on the brink of change, many state, county, and city public health
departments are seeking legitimacy and guidance by undergoing voluntary national
accreditation by the Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB) (DeSalvo et al., 2016).
Oregon’s Public Health Division became nationally accredited in April 2016, after a two-
year process of assessment, planning, and establishment of quality improvement metrics
(Oregon Public Health Division, 2016b). The process included local/regional community
health assessments and development of community health improvement plans and the
Oregon State Health Improvement Plan (Oregon Public Health Division, 2015), each of
which contained associated metrics for measuring improvements. To guide the process,
OPHD established a quality improvement team within the director’s office.
A statewide public health modernization process formally began following the
passage of Oregon House Bill 3100 in 2015. Modernization aims to ensure core
foundational capabilities in all areas of the state to better meet the needs of citizens. As
the largest governmental health authority in Oregon, OPHD is a major contributor to the
public health modernization process. Leaders within the Oregon state legislature have
acknowledged the importance of shifting focus from the modernization of the medical
care system to the modernization of public health systems, recognizing that community
environments, systems, and resources have a far greater impact on health than does
access to medical care (Oregon Public Health Division, 2016d). Guided by a
modernization assessment (Berk Consulting, 2016) and the Public Health Modernization
Manual (Oregon Public Health Division, 2016c), a multi-year process of modernization

got even more firmly underway in 2016. The Oregon legislature passed a $5 million
public health modernization implementation budget package in 2017, which is supporting
grants to local public health authorities to improve health equity (Oregon Public Health
Division, 2017).
Relevance of the Topic for Depth Psychology
This inquiry attempts to identify how a depth psychological perspective that
acknowledges both the reality of the individual psyche and its dialectical nature (Coppin
& Nelson, 2005, pp. 39-87) can inform a process of governmental organizational change.
As such, it bridges depth psychology and organizational change theory and explores the
potential application of archetypal analysis to organizational change within a
governmental setting.
This research expands upon a summer fieldwork project (Chisholm, 2015), which
indicated that an approach to program evaluation informed by somatic depth psychology
can enrich an organization’s view of itself by unearthing and shining light upon
influences and outcomes that might otherwise remain undiscovered and unexamined.
These influences include the perspectives of the unconscious experiences of the mind and
soul (psyche) and body (soma), including archetypal influences and shadow material.
The fieldwork project inquired into the core values of a non-profit arts organization
through a series of focus groups that guided board members, volunteers, and audience
members to use imagery and metaphor in their discussion. In response to the project’s
results, the organization’s executive director “went from seeing [Portland Revels] as an
arts organization that creates community to understanding us as a community that creates
art” (Jenny Stadler, personal communication, September 2015). The findings helped the
Revels board and executive director to reorient programming, marketing, and grant
writing efforts to strengthen focus on the community of performers, audience members,
and volunteers that created the art, in addition to focusing specifically on the art itself.
Through this inquiry I have built upon the success of this depth-informed
organizational analysis project, focusing this time on identification of archetypal patterns
manifesting within the change process of a governmental organization. This inquiry
seeks to explore whether a process of transformation and modernization within a
bureaucratic agency can be viewed as an opportunity for progress toward organizational
individuation, much as an individual’s midlife crisis can jumpstart that person’s
developmental process. This research constitutes a detailed, real-world example of
Jungian and archetypally informed organizational analysis that offers new tools and a
new perspective on depth psychologically informed processes of organizational
transformation.
This research employs Corlett and Pearson’s (2003) concept of organizational
psyche, the dynamic and self-regulating core of an organization that possesses a structure
analogous to that of the individual psyche as defined by Jung. In their exposition of
Jungian Organization Theory, Corlett and Pearson describe the organizational psyche as
powered by the same life force or libido that powers the individual psyche. Its conscious
aspects include a public face similar to an individual person’s persona, as well as a center
of consciousness that is roughly analogous to the individual ego and embodied in the
organization’s people and structures, diffused among the power brokers of the
organization.
These conscious aspects of organizational psyche exist in relationship with the
Archetype of Organization, roughly analogous to the Jungian concept of the archetypal
Self, which is both specifically individual and universal (Corlett & Pearson, 2003). The
Archetype of Organization is made up of a specific balance of 12 core archetypes, and as
such represents the “psychological core of the organization…the full and unique
expression of a particular organization in dialogue with its environment” (p.19). In its
universal aspect, the Archetype of Organization serves as “the template of organizations,
in general” (p. 19), and takes a mandala-like structure that juxtaposes the dynamics of
people through the archetypes of Lover, Jester, and Everyperson with results by means of
the Hero, Revolutionary, and Magician archetypes. This model also juxtaposes the
learning influences mediated by the Innocent, Sage, and Explorer archetypes with the
stabilizing influences of the archetypal Creator, Caregiver, and Ruler. The equilibrium of
these twelve archetypal influences within the Archetype of Organization expresses each
organization’s unique flavor and strongly influences its culture.
According to Corlett and Pearson (2003), the organizational psyche also contains
unconscious aspects (shadow, projections, complexes), and is informed by the collective
unconscious. In their view, although the organizational psyche is influenced by the
psyches of the individuals that make it up, it is also understood to contain universal
aspects that transcend these individual influences; it is therefore more than the sum of its
individual parts.
By extending depth psychology’s mythological perspective to the practice of
organizational change, this research seeks to elucidate archetypal patterns active within
an organizational psyche, using Hillman’s concept of seeing through (1975). It seeks to

answer archetypally based questions that Hillman might have asked: Which gods and
goddesses are at work within this process of change? What unexamined stories of
transformation are playing out under the surface? What alchemical processes are at
work? In Hillman’s view, alchemy “was the depth psychology of an earlier age…a
prestage of psychological analysis rather than of chemical analysis” and provides
“precise, concrete and rich examples of the imaginative process of soul-making” (p. 90).
This research offers an eros-based analysis to balance the logos-based perspective that
commonly informs organizational development praxis. By examining which archetypes
comprising the Archetype of Organization are most strongly and most weakly
represented in the analysis, it also seeks to delve beneath the surface of a workplace
culture to identify shadow aspects of the organizational psyche. By examining the
organizational psyche, this research brings the voice of the organization’s soul into the
examination of an organizational change process.
Likewise, by employing methodology and ontological and epistemological
perspectives that recognize the voice of the body (soma) as a valid aspect of the research
process, this study contributes to the growing body of somatically informed inquiry
within the fields of depth psychology. It examines data describing somatic experiences
of the participants (current and former employees of OPHD) and the researcher, and also
employs techniques of embodied text analysis (Brooks, 2010; Chadwick, 2012) and
metaphor analysis (Schmitt, 2005) to identify embodied archetypal material in the data.
Researcher’s Relationship to the Topic
I first became aware of the opportunity to bring a depth perspective to this topic
when the communications lead in the OPHD Director’s Office invited me to participate
in the OPHD modernization workgroup as a depth psychological consultant. The
communications lead and I had previously collaborated regarding archetypal perspectives
on public health communication (Chisholm & Heiberg, 2014), and she suggested that an
archetypal lens might bring a useful perspective to the internal communications planning
process. I began attending weekly meetings of this workgroup in summer 2016, and the
concept for this research was subsequently generated out of conversations with OPHD
leadership.
I bring an insider perspective to this case study, having worked within OPHD for
sixteen years. During this time, I have held positions of increasing responsibility from
health educator to program coordinator, grant manager, team lead, and program manager.
I currently function in the middle of OPHD’s hierarchical bureaucracy as a manager
within the Injury and Violence Prevention Program, and am privy to both the struggles of
union-represented workers and of the managers and executives who bear a high level of
responsibility and public scrutiny.
Since I began my studies at Pacifica, I have struggled to juxtapose the dominant
logos/thinking/sensing function of my conscious workday persona—which functions well
within the positivist-informed public health bureaucracy I work in—with the dominant
eros/feeling/intuitive function of my unconscious archetypal ego that thrived during my
doctoral coursework at Pacifica. During my coursework I explored the tension between
these opposites, the growing gulf “between my public servant persona and…my
archetypal Self” (Chisholm, 2014). One product of this process was a collage I created to
explore these opposites, which contained images of a honeycomb, a flock of hens, rows
of corn plants struggling to survive in sandy soil, and a caged songbird. As I analyzed
the meaning of these images, several complexes likely to affect my relationship to my
workplace—and thus, by extension, to this research—began to emerge:
I associate these images with negative aspects of my professional life. These
include my worker bee/queen bee and pecking order complexes activated within
the female-dominated hierarchy of the state public health bureaucracy; the dry,
thinking-oriented workplace environment that is inhospitable to my
intuitive/feeling dominant Jungian personality type; and my sense of entrapment
and loss of authentic voice within a setting that does not value creativity or artistic
expression. (p. 2)
These images and tensions hint at some of the transferences and projections that I carry to
this research. They have inspired me to conduct self-inquiry along multiple lines related
to the dynamics of power and status within my workplace, and within my research.
Throughout the process I have continued to hold the tension of the opposites
between my professional persona and my emerging archetypal self. Could it be that this
inquiry heralds the manifestation of a possible transcendent third in this process? Viewed
from this perspective, this inquiry provided an opportunity to move closer toward
personal individuation. I hope that it also provides a means of assisting decision makers
in my workplace—the organizational leadership of OPHD—to steer the organization
along the path of individuation. However, I am aware that it is my duty as a researcher to
hold these aspirations lightly.
My experience as a sixteen-year employee of OPHD provides me with a unique
perspective on the research question. While I lack the relative objectivity of an outsider,
as an insider I know the system well, and have gained sufficient trust and credibility
among the agency’s management to enable me to undertake the project as a scholar-
practitioner. In this role, I have served as an insider researcher seeking to generate
actionable knowledge that is both “robust for scholars and actionable for practitioners”
(Coghlan, 2013).
My dual relationship as an employee and researcher does pose potential ethical
and methodological issues. However, there is a strong precedent for the insider position
within the field of organizational development. The Methodology and Ethical
Considerations sections in Chapter 3 more thoroughly discuss the means I used to
mitigate these challenges.
Definition of Terms
Central to an archetypal analysis of organizational development process within a
modernizing governmental public health agency are the terms health, public health,
public health modernization, psyche, soma, archetype, alchemy, unconscious, collective
unconscious, organization, organizational psyche, and government. Definitions of these
terms follow.
Health, as defined by the World Health Organization, is “a state of complete
physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or
infirmity” (1948, p. 100). It follows, therefore, that this state of health—which involves a
total fulfillment of well-being in three realms—possesses elusive and aspirational
qualities. The definition of health I have employed for the purposes of this inquiry
expands to include a dimension not included by the World Health Organization, but
fundamental to Jungian psychology: that of the spirit. Additionally, this inquiry assumes
that a state of health implies balance or equilibrium and is thus a dynamic, rather than a
static, aspect of being.
Public health “promotes and protects the health of people and the communities
where they live, learn, work, and play” (American Public Health Association, 2017) and
“works to assure the conditions in which people can be healthy.” The practice of public
health includes activities such as protection of the public from harmful influences,
education about health risks, supporting health-promoting behaviors and environments,
and collection and analysis of epidemiological data to characterize risks, protective
factors, and outcomes. Underlying public health practice is a strong emphasis on
science-based inquiry into the causes of poor health and implementation of solutions that
show evidence of efficacy. Public health practice also focuses on health equity by
identifying why some members of society are more likely to experience poor health than
others and putting measures in place to mitigate causes of health inequity.
Public health modernization is a current effort to upgrade the public health system
in Oregon to ensure its ability to effectively serve the public. According to the Oregon
Public Health Modernization Task force (HB 2348 Future of Public Health Services Task
Force, 2014), modernization includes an increased focus on the system’s ability to
respond to emerging health challenges by focusing on systems, policies, and program
changes that will reduce the prevalence of disease and injury. The modernization process
is guided by the Oregon Public Health Modernization Assessment Report (Berk
Consulting, 2016) and the Oregon Public Health Modernization Manual (Oregon Public
Health Division, 2016c), which called for development of foundational capabilities and
programs in the areas of communicable disease control, health promotion and disease
prevention, environmental health, and access to clinical preventive services.
Psyche, the Greek word for soul or spirit, encompasses conscious and
unconscious aspects of mind and soul for the purposes of this research. Although use of
this expanded definition has been marginalized by the advent of an empirical and
scientific approach to psychology in the 20th century, this expanded definition is crucial
to a depth psychological understanding of the topic.
The unconscious aspect of psyche lies outside of conscious awareness. It is made
up of the personal unconscious, which contains complexes, projections, and the shadow,
as well as the collective unconscious, which houses the archetypes and instincts (Stein,
1998, p. 234). The collective unconscious is an innate, inherited, and universally human
aspect of the deep psyche that is distinct from the personal unconscious, which develops
by means of individual experience (Jung, 1933/1959, pp. 5134-5144; Jung, 1936/1959,
pp. 42-53).
As used in this manuscript, the words soma and somatic take their meaning from
the Greek word for “the body experienced from within” (Hartley, 2004, p. 11). The
somatic perspective of this inquiry embraces an embodied experience of psyche that does
not ascribe to dualistic understanding or separate fleshy experience from that of the mind
and of the soul.
Archetypes are prototypical, spontaneously arising patterns of behavior,
perception, and understanding that arise from the collective unconscious (Jung,
1946/1969, p. 57). As the “primary source of [human] psychic energy and patterning”
(Stein, 1998, p. 85) they transcend temporal and cultural boundaries. A detailed
definition of archetypes follows in the literature review. Within this document I use
proper nouns when referring to specific archetypal patterns—e.g. Hero, Sage,
Caregiver—to clearly differentiate them from generic concepts.
Alchemy is a proto-science viewed by C. G. Jung and other depth psychologists as
a metaphorical expression of the symbolic processes leading toward the philosopher’s
stone of psychological individuation and integration. For the purposes of this inquiry,
alchemical images provide “an objective basis from which to approach dreams and other
unconscious material” (Edinger, 1985, p. xx), including the somatic and emotional
symptoms of researcher and research participants.
Organizations are “social structures created by individuals to support the
collaborative pursuit of specified goals” (Scott, 1992, p. 10). Organizations define shared
objectives, select and train members, develop systems for control and coordination,
interact with the environment, and provide leadership (Katz & Kahn, 1966; March &
Simon, 1958; Thompson, 1967). Organizational culture refers to a system of “basic
assumptions” (Schein, 2010) with shared meaning, developed and perpetuated by
members, that distinguishes one organization from another and typically involves rituals
and social norms regarding dress, behavior, and language. Organizational psyche, as
defined by Corlett and Pearson (2003), has been described above.
Government is a system of authority that has the power to make and enforce laws
over a certain territory and which, if efficient, exercises legitimate authority over
behavior of citizens (Weber, 1958), who are subject to governmental rules whether or not
they intentionally choose to be. In the case of the state of Oregon, government refers to a
constitutional democratic system set up to create, implement, and interpret the laws of the
state via legislative, executive, and judicial means. The OPHD, described in more depth
below, belongs to the executive branch of state government, which ultimately answers to
the authority of Oregon’s governor.
The Organization Under Study: The Oregon Public Health Division
The OPHD is a division of the Oregon Health Authority (OHA), and is the
governmental entity charged with the mission of “promoting health and preventing the
leading causes of death, disease and injury in Oregon” (Oregon Public Health Division,
2016a). The OHA contains most of the state’s health-related programs, including public
health, the Oregon Health Plan (Medicaid), and state employee benefits boards. In
addition to improving how health care is delivered and paid for, OHA aims to reduce
health-related disparities and to broaden the state’s focus on prevention (OHA, 2017). In
terms of budget and workforce, OHA is the largest entity within Oregon state
government. In addition to its fiscal and operations divisions, OHA includes the
following divisions: Health Policy and Analytics, Equity and Inclusion, External
Relations, Health Systems, the Oregon State Hospital, and Public Health (OPHD). The
OHA Governor’s budget for the 2017-2019 biennium included approximately $20.4
billion in funding, with approximately $648.4 million (3%) earmarked for the Public
Health Division (Oregon Health Authority, 2017).
The OPHD is one of seven divisions of the Oregon Health Authority. In the
2017-2019 biennium, the Governor’s budget included 755 full time equivalent employees
of OPHD (Oregon Health Authority, 2017). OPHD consists of the Office of the State
Public Health Director, which leads the public health modernization process, and three
centers. The Center for Prevention & Health Promotion (CPHP) contains programs that
involve community and clinically based approaches to improving health across the
lifespan. Its sections include Adolescent, Genetic, and Reproductive Health; Health
Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention; Injury and Violence Prevention; Maternal
and Child Health; and Nutrition and Health Screening. The Center for Health Protection
includes drinking water, environmental public health, health care regulation and quality
improvement, health licensing, medical marijuana, and radiation protection programs.
The Center for Public Health Practice includes acute and communicable disease
prevention; health statistics, HIV/sexually transmitted diseases/tuberculosis; health
security, preparedness and response, and immunization programs, as well as the Oregon
Public Health Laboratory (Oregon Public Health Division, 2016a).
Statement of the Research Problem and Question
The OPHD is undergoing modernization, which has ushered in a decade-long
process of organizational change. During this time of upheaval and uncertainty,
organizational leaders are seeking guidance about how to most effectively modernize.
The organizational development theory that leaders drew upon early in the modernization
process (Bridges, 2009) acknowledges the overall theme of descent, realignment, and
emergence inherent in the archetypal hero’s journey. However, this rubric does not
provide a framework or tools for investigating the specific archetypal patterns that are
manifesting within the organization and its individual components.
As Corlett has noted, “for the organization at ‘mid-life’ all the really significant
battles are to be fought within” (1996, p. 24). Archetypal analysis can assist this process
of organizational introspection by helping to identify what is going on beneath the
surface of an organization and bringing to light hidden patterns. For example, an

imbalance of the Hero and Caregiver archetypes within an organization might manifest as
relentless pursuit of results in the form of ever-increasing profits or efficiency at the
expense of employees’ work/life balance. Or, like the short-lived airline People Express,
which strongly expressed the archetypal Revolutionary and weakly expressed the
archetypal Ruler, an organization might put so many resources into innovation that it
never establishes structures to keep it financially stable (Corlett, 1996). Understanding
archetypal patterns can help identify an organization’s blind spots, identify imbalances
between the culture and values of the organization and those of employees, and point the
way toward realization of an organization’s unmet potential.
In the course of this inquiry, archetypal analysis provides this kind of additional
perspective on the organization, and is intended to help inform leaders’ decisions about
how to most effectively and sensitively engage in the modernization process. It seeks to
simultaneously increase the organization’s self-awareness of archetypal patterns that may
help or hinder its journey toward individuation by identifying which archetypes lie within
the organizational shadow and which are being strongly expressed. This inquiry aims to
address this need by answering the following research questions: What archetypes are
active within the organizational psyche of OPHD? How might their analysis help to
inform the organization’s development and modernization?

Chapter 2. Literature Review
The following review of literature germane to the research question focuses on
three major categories of inquiry. These reflect the interdisciplinary nature of this
endeavor, which seeks to weave together conceptual threads from organizational
psychology and organizational development, analytical and archetypal psychology, and
public health practice to consider how depth psychological principles can inform the
individuation process of government organizations that seek to support and promote the
public’s health.
The review begins with a brief overview major paradigms that underlie
organizational dynamics theory and praxis, focusing on the particularly influential
categorizations offered by Bolman and Deal (2008) and Chin and Benne (1985).
It provides a high-level review of research undertaken within the rubric of organizational
dynamics theory that situates this inquiry within the larger landscape of organizational
development praxis.
The second major topic is the field of archetypally informed organizational
development theory and practice. Rooted in the evolution of the concept of archetype
and its function within psyche as informed by the analytical psychology of Carl Gustav
Jung and the archetypal psychology of James Hillman, this aspect of the review explores
how researchers and practitioners have described the manifestation of archetypal
influences within organizations and used this information to inform organizational
development. This discussion covers the Jungian concept of the collective unconscious
and Hillman’s archetypal psychology and concept of anima mundi, and describes how
this work has influenced archetypal organizational theory in the late 20th and early 21st
centuries. It also reviews depth-informed perspectives (neo-Freudian/psychoanalytic
approaches and those informed by Jungian analytical psychology) on the influence of
unconscious material that manifests within groups, with special focus upon archetypal
influences, mythological interpretations of organizational behavior, and the manifestation
of organizational shadow. This review also explores how identification, analysis, and
integration of unconscious archetypal influences has been understood to benefit
organizational change and contribute to improvements in function that might be
described from a depth perspective as movement toward organizational individuation.
The third major topic treated within this review is the contemporary crisis of
identity within American state public health agencies. This aspect of the review
describes current public health crises and organizational responses to them, in particular
the shifting roles and functions within contemporary state public health agencies. It then
describes the specific case of the OPHD and its current process of organizational self-
inquiry undertaken under the auspices of public health modernization. The review
culminates with an overview of precedents for this research, and explores the current
state of research into organizational archetypal analysis within public institutions.
Approaches to Organizational Change
Anyone who has experience interacting with other people over time to achieve
common goals knows that the process is often messy. While organizational dysfunctions
may not be immediately apparent to a newcomer or outsider, those in the know can often
recognize and describe superficial patterns of behavior and function that create
challenges, which may run the gamut from minor friction to full-fledged chaos. These
organizational dysfunctions can negatively affect employee morale, productivity,

efficiency, quality of product or service, and the organization’s financial bottom line. A
variety of approaches have been developed in response to these challenges; a description
of two major schemas to categorize these endeavors follows.
Bolman and Deal’s four-frame model. The field of industrial-organizational
psychology, which uses psychological theory and research methodology to improve the
function of organizations, came into American cultural consciousness in the 1920s with
the publishing of Frederick Taylor’s The Principles of Scientific Management (2002).
This work laid a strong foundation for the study of organizations as a scientific endeavor,
characterized by an empirical and positivist epistemology. Bowles (1990) has described
this as the “machine” organizational model, while Bolman and Deal (2008) identify this
perspective as representing a structural frame of organizational development that
“focuses on the architecture of an organization—the design of units and subunits, rules
and roles, goals and policies” (p. 21). These authors note that Max Weber’s work
strongly influenced this approach, including his emphasis on “monocratic
bureaucracy”—characterized by fixed division of labor, hierarchy, rules governing
performance, separation between personal and official property and rights, use of
technical qualifications for employee selection, and a view of employment as primary
occupation and long-term career—as the ideal of rational organization (p. 48).
Bolman and Deal (2008) have offered three additional frames to classify
dominant paradigmatic approaches to modern organizational development theory and
praxis. The human resources frame “emphasizes understanding people, their strengths
and foibles, reason and emotion, desires and fears,” (p. 21). A seminal work representing
this frame is the study conducted at Western Electric from 1924 to 1933, which
demonstrated that acknowledging the “ghost in the machine” by taking workers’ feelings
into account during processes of change resulted in increased productivity independent of
working conditions (Roethlisberger & Dickson, 1939). Strongly influenced by Maslow’s
(1954) work on the human hierarchy of needs and McGregor’s (1960) work on the self-
fulfilling nature of management assumptions, organizational development theory and
practice conducted within the human resource frame assumes that organizations exist to
serve human needs, that people and organizations need each other, and that the “fit”
between people and organizations strongly influences outcomes of both parties (Bolman
& Deal, 2008, p. 122).
Organizational development initiatives informed by a political frame assume that
organizations represent coalitions of various interests that often contrast and conflict, that
the allocation of scarce resources makes power a valuable asset, and that organizational
goals and decisions are the result of bargaining and negotiation among competing
stakeholders (Bolman & Deal, 2008, pp. 194-195). Seminal works within this frame
include Cyert and March (1963) on organizational sub-coalitions’ influence upon
decision making and Pfeffer and Salancik (1978) on the importance of external
constituents and power sources within organizational decision making.
Bolman and Deal (2008) have offered a fourth symbolic frame of organizational
development theory and practice, which is most closely aligned with the research
described in this study. Initiatives informed by this paradigm draw upon organization
theory, sociology, political science, and Jungian theory and focus on meaning,
interpretation, subjectivity and ambiguity, symbolism, mythology, ceremony, and
storytelling (p. 253). The symbolic frame acknowledges unconscious psychological

processes at work beneath the surface of workplaces and stems from the growing
influence of social psychology upon organizational psychology in the latter part of the
twentieth century.
An early offshoot of this trend, the study of organizational climate, came into
vogue in the middle of the twentieth century (Schein, 1988). Organizational climate
research focuses on directly observable emotional, behavioral, and attitudinal patterns
and is elucidated by measurement of cognitive schemas and shared perceptions (Isaksen
& Ekvall, 2007). Another important evolution in the contribution of depth perspectives
to organizational development was Edgar Schein’s Organizational Culture and
Leadership (2010). This influential publication introduced the concept of organizational
culture into mainstream organizational development theory, presenting it as the study of
deeply rooted “patterns of behavior and levels of stability in groups and organizations”
(Schein, 1988, p. 3) that are difficult to quantify. This definition hints at a growing
understanding of the need to look beneath the surface of organizational behavior to
understand the drivers of behavioral patterns that affect organizational performance.
According to Schein, “what really thrust the concept [of organizational culture] to the
forefront [in the 1980s was]…trying to explain why U.S. companies do not perform as
well as some of their counterpart companies in other countries” (1988, p. 3). Since that
time, a wealth of research in organizational culture has been conducted using social
psychology, survey research, empirical descriptive, ethnographic, historical, and clinical
descriptive methodologies (pp. 5-6).
Psychoanalytic organizational development consultant and theorist Manfred Kets
de Vries (2011) noted the parallel evolution of organizational culture theory with
psychodynamic group theory. He elaborated upon Schein’s description of the study of
organizational culture as a means of exploring “a pattern of shared basic assumptions that
the group learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration”
(Schein, 2010, p. 72). This definition hints at unconscious drivers of organizational
behavior by means of its emphasis on underlying patterns, but it does not explicitly
describe the unconscious or archetypal nature of those patterns. However, it does echo
British psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion’s (1961) previously articulated concept of “basic
assumption functioning,” which refers to predictable patterns of functioning organized
around a largely unconscious group objective that binds its members together. Kets de
Vries (2011) provides a description of psychoanalytically informed organizational theory
built upon Bion’s definition of basic assumption patterns within organizations:
Organizational culture is the water in which fish swim. Unaware of the
environment in which they exist, fish take the water for granted until the moment
they are taken out of it. Similarly, many of the elements of organizational culture
operate at an unconscious level, without organizational members paying too much
attention to it. (p. 74)
This definition offers a depth psychological perspective by acknowledging the
unconscious nature of underlying patterns of function within organizations, and by noting
the common lack of awareness among members of organizations that such patterns exist.
Joseph Henderson (1964, 1990), who did not explicitly extend his theory to
organizational analysis, did provide a Jungian interpretation that may be applied to the
culture of organizations. His work described the archetype of culture as stemming from a
cultural layer of the unconscious (1964, p. 9), and noted that “much of what Jung called
the personal unconscious [author’s emphasis] was not personal but cultural” (1990, p.
117). Henderson, along with Edinger (1972), also elaborated upon the relationship
between culture and the individual ego, describing the importance of re-evaluating one’s
relationship to the external culture and differentiating oneself from it as part of the
individuation process.
Chin and Benne’s three strategies, and Corlett’s proposed fourth. While this
inquiry most closely corresponds with the symbolic frame—one of the four
organizational change theory models described by Bolman and Deal (2008) described
above—it does not fit neatly into another influential planned change strategy
classification scheme outlined by Chin and Benne (1985). Within their trifold
classification of planned change strategies, the first is a frequently applied empirical-
rational strategy, which assumes that people will follow rational self-interest when acting
in groups. The second type they describe, normative-re-educative change strategy,
involves changing normative patterns of behavior and substituting new patterns supported
by attitudes and value systems. Chin and Benne’s third type, power-coercive strategy,
includes processes that exert political and economic sanctions and moral power to effect
organizational change.
While the inquiry described in this manuscript fits none of these classifications
particularly well, Corlett (2000) has proposed an additional grouping of strategies—
including archetypal organizational analysis—that fits more closely. These strategies
share a common aim and basic assumption: to purposefully “tap into energies that lie
beyond the realm of ego (i.e. managerial control) and rational analysis…[and assume]
that planning change sometimes means creating a container for change and letting go” (p.
17). In addition to archetypal organizational analysis, Corlett included transpersonal
approaches, open space technology, analysis of organizational covert processes, and
analogically mediated inquiry in this grouping of change technologies. Corlett suggested
that these methodologies could constitute a fourth category of transformational/re-
membering approaches. Other common features of these planned change processes
include co-creative processes undertaken by interdependent partners, one of which is the
organization itself, and appreciation of the organization as an entity that transcends its
individual constituents. The inquiry described here shares much in common with this
perspective.
In summary, it is clear that “beneath the surface” forces within organizations and
their potential influence upon organizational change processes are acknowledged within
the field of organizational development (Adams, 1993; Buckle, 2003; Henning 2007).
Approaches cited above that fit within Bolman and Deal’s (2008) symbolic frame and
Corlett’s transformational/re-membering addition to Chin and Benne’s classification
(Chin & Benne, 1985; Corlett, 2000) provide examples of this perspective. However,
fewer authors have articulated a specifically Jungian perspective on the unconscious
dynamics of shadow and archetype within organizations (Kostera, 2012; Mitroff, 1983;
Stein & Hollwitz, 2015) or attempted to apply Jungian psychological theory to
organizations (Colman, 2015; Corlett & Pearson, 2003; Mitroff, 1983; Pearson & Marr,
2003, 2007). Their work is discussed in more detail below.
Archetypes: Their Characteristics and Conceptual Origin
Within the Jungian perspective, the depth psychological concept of archetype is a
key aspect of the collective unconscious that manifests within organizations and a key
mediator between individual and collective aspects of consciousness. This aspect of
psyche hearkens back to Plato’s concept of Forms, which has also been translated from
the ancient Greek as ideas. Plato described these metaphysical entities as “universal
exemplars” (Klima, 2005, p. 835), patterns upon which individual concrete objects are
modeled. Plato described the Forms as sets of universally applicable properties that exist
in non-physical state but are the most accurate representations of types of physical
objects.
Drawing upon Plato and the 19th century polymath Adolph Bastian’s description
of Elementargedanken, elementary ideas of folklore and myth, within culture (El-Shamy,
2011), C. G. Jung translated the notion of Forms into his larger conceptualization of
human psychological experience. While Jung eventually described archetypes as a
fundamental aspect of psyche, Lewis (1989) has described the gradual evolution of the
concept within his writings and how this process reflects their elusive, difficult-to-define
nature. Jung first expressed what later became the concept of archetypes as primordial
images in essays collected in Symbols of Transformation (1952/1967, pp. 115-403), later
described them as mythological images (Jung, 1952/2014, pp. 520-531), and eventually
developed his mature theory of their expression as archetypes in On the Nature of the
Psyche (Jung, 1954/2014b, pp. 159-234). These he described in his later writing on
synchronicity as “formal factors responsible for the organization of unconscious psychic
processes: they are ‘patterns of behaviour’” (Jung, 1952/2014, p. 322) that function as a
foundational aspect of the psyche. Jung described archetypes as populating the
individual human psyche, which consists of both conscious elements, such as the ego and
persona, and unconscious elements. The landscape of the unconscious psyche, he noted,
contains complexes—autonomous, emotionally charged bundles of memories—as well as
archetypes (patterns of understanding) and instincts (patterns of action) (Corlett &
Pearson, 2003, p. 14). These populate the psychoid realm between mind and matter.
While archetypes and the psychic energy they contain are generated in the collective
unconscious psyche, archetypes also commonly constellate within the individual
unconscious. The eruption of archetypal energies and images into consciousness may be
influenced and flavored by the influence of complexes (Stein, 1998).
Archetypes as described by Jung are not experienced directly, but are instead
inherited, primordial patterns of functioning. They are dynamic organizers of images,
ideas, and matter that arise from the collective unconscious, carry a numinous quality,
and are “associated with synchronistic occurrences that meaningfully connect particular
psychic and physical events” (Lewis, 1989, p. 52). Jung described them as foundational
aspects of psyche, the “‘human quality’ of the human being…not disseminated only by
tradition, language, and migration, but…[which] can rearise [sic] spontaneously, at any
time, and at any place, and without any outside influence” (Jung, 1954/2014c, p. 67).
Jung viewed archetypes as the “primary source of psychic energy and patterning” (Stein,
1998, p. 85). As the ultimate source of symbols, which attract and structure energy, Jung
also described archetypes’ profound contribution to the development of human
civilization and culture (p. 85).
Other depth psychologists have built upon Jung’s theory of the archetype and its
function in psyche. These include Jolande Jacobi (1974) who synthesized and interpreted
Jung’s many discussions of archetype, Erich Neumann who described the clustering of
symbols into archetypal canons (1949/2007), and Marie-Louise von Franz (1996) who
explicated their expressions within fairy tales. Edinger (1972) also described the
archetype of Self and the dynamic nature of the ego-self axis by which the ego separates
from Self during the first half of life and then moves toward greater consciousness
(individuation) via a dialectical relationship between ego and Self (pp. 4-7).
Particularly influential to this research is the work of James Hillman, who built
upon Jung’s theoretical foundation of analytical psychology to create the critical,
iconoclastic, and socially applied viewpoint of archetypal psychology. Like Jung,
Hillman described archetypes as fundamentally human, “the deepest patterns of psychic
functioning” (1975, p. xiii). Hillman also noted the strong emotional resonance of
archetypes and their tendency to constellate in behavior, images, mythology, and
particular styles of consciousness (pp. xiii-xiv). Hillman fleshed out Jung’s description
of archetypes by describing them as plural and reflecting the many-sidedness of human
nature. He also acknowledged that archetypes lend themselves to descriptions that are
more metaphorical than literal and most appropriately described by use of other
metaphors (pp. xiii-xiv).
Hillman also promoted use of an alchemical lens to appreciate the workings of the
personal unconscious; he believed alchemical symbolism to be “personified metaphors of
psychological complexes, attitudes, and processes” (p. 90). Edinger (1985) expanded
upon Hillman’s alchemical approach to individual psychotherapy by describing seven
major alchemical processes—calcinatio, solutio, coagulatio, sublimatio, mortificatio,
separatio, and coniunctio—and the specific psychological and somatic imagery that
represents that each of these unique processes of personal transformation.

This research also builds upon a significant body of literature focused on the
identification of archetypal and mythological material within the individual psyche,
including that of Robert Bly (2004) and Jean Shinoda Bolen (1984, 1989, 2001), as well
as the work of Carolyn Myss (2013), Carol Pearson (1991, 2003), and Pearson and Marr
(2003) on identification and expression of personal archetypal patterns to serve individual
psychological development. In addition, this inquiry draws upon depth psychological
approaches to leadership. These include Neumann’s juxtaposition of the ubiquitous,
extraverted “Great Individual” aspect of the Hero archetype with the introverted inner-
Hero (1949/2007) aspect that conquers internal demons, Andrew Samuels’ (2000)
concept of the “good-enough leader” who embodies a non-heroic archetype, and
archetypally informed approaches to transformational leadership (Pearson, 2012). The
work of other theorists who have related the Jungian concept of archetype to the natural
and physical sciences has also informed this inquiry. Stevens (1982) described how the
concept of archetype is as crucial to psychology as Darwin’s work on inheritance patterns
was to ethology (natural history) and elaborates on the archetypal nature of patterns in
nature and evolution. Conforti (2013) has related archetypes to field theory, a conceptual
model for space-time dependent processes “used in mathematics and science to refer to
operations occurring within a three-dimensional plane” (p. 39). Conforti noted that
archetypal fields, unlike those described in mathematics and physics, appear to function
non-locally, and that their influence is not space-time dependent (p. 39). He has also
connected the concept of archetype to organizations: “We also find archetypal couplings
and patterns operative…in the business world, where each evolves in accordance with a
preformed, archetypal morphology” (p. 60).

The Confluence of Archetype and Organization
While Jung thoroughly described the influence of archetypal manifestations on
the individual psyche via the universal collective unconscious, he did not extend his
theory of archetypes or his analytical psychology to the middle ground of organizational
analysis. Indeed, Jung’s view of organizations was overwhelmingly negative (Corlett &
Pearson, 2003, p. xii), as exemplified by his statement that “large political and social
organizations…eat away man’s nature as soon as they become ends in themselves and
attain autonomy.…He becomes their victim and is sacrificed to the madness of an idea
that knows no master” (Jung, 1957/1970, p. 293). Hillman’s archetypal psychology,
however, opened the door to examining a collective form of psyche by exploring means
of tending to anima mundi, the soul of the world (1982), and by addressing collectively
manifesting symptoms within the social realms of politics, citizenship, cities, and public
spaces (2015). Hillman built upon Jung’s work by applying the concept of archetype that
Jung employed from an introverted, individual perspective to an extraverted perspective
applied to the world psyche. In Hillman’s view, this broader archetypal perspective leads
one “to envision the basic nature and structure of the soul in an imaginative way and to
approach the basic questions of psychology first of all by means of the imagination”
(1975, p. xiii). Archetypal psychology, in the words of Hillman, is a therapeutic modality
that provides opportunity for a “revisioning, a fundamental shift of perspective out of that
soulless predicament we call modern consciousness” (p. 3).
Hillman did not explicitly apply his archetypal psychology to the field of
organizational development. However, his concept of pathologizing is particularly
germane to the study of organizational psychology because it encourages cultivation of

archetypally informed awareness of “the psyche’s autonomous ability to create illness,
morbidity, disorder, abnormality, and suffering” (1975, p. 57) and pays particular
attention to pathological patterns as archetypal expressions. Within this framework,
symptoms may be interpreted as the metaphorical language of the soul, moderated by
archetypes manifesting through individuals and the organizations they belong to. These
symptoms may be physical or emotional, for as Hillman noted, “everything matters to
soul and expresses its fantasies, whether ideas in the head or bones in the body” (p. 80).
Rather than being something to be denied, medicated, or pushed aside, these symptoms
serve as a means of connecting to a source of potential cure: “a means to know what it [a
symptom] might be saying about the soul and what the soul might be saying by means of
it” (p. 57). From Hillman’s archetypal perspective, within the prima materia of
pathology lies the potential for transmutation by means of integration of shadow and the
opportunity to heal psychological—and organizational—wounds. This perspective is
reflected in the work of several contemporary organizational development theorists,
including Corlett and Pearson (2003), Stein and Hollwitz (2015), Colman (2015), and
Kostera (2012).
Hillman further elaborated upon the manifestation of Apollonian (objective,
rational, detached) and Dionysian (irrational, emotional, relationship based) archetypes
(1995, pp. 113, 224), which have exerted an influence upon organizational development
through a mythological perspective. By means of simultaneously distancing one’s view
and seeing through surface appearances (1975, pp. 141-145) to underlying power
dynamics, patterns of interaction, and behavior, Hillman noted that “moralizing about it
[use of power] falls away. This is because the background figures…show that there are
no absolute good or absolute evil figures…any form of power can be destructive or
constructively valuable” (Hillman, 1995, p. 104).
Hillman’s concept of seeing through the surface to archetypal influences is
reflected in organizational psychology by McWhinney and Battista (1988), who have
offered a three-stage organizational “re-mythologizing” process “that recaptures the
original source energy of organizations and communities…thus linking the primal energy
with present conditions” (p. 46). The process of re-mythologizing, they have noted, also
Provides critical understanding of organizational stories by laying bare the ethical
and social issues that are hidden under our expurgated and rationalized
stories…[and] their examination can lead to a return to a better start and,
ultimately, to the founding of new organizations for a new age. (p. 58)
Morgan (2006) shared this perspective as he explored metaphorical approaches to
understanding organizations, organizational behavior, and organizational development
and described their potential to profoundly reshape organizational life. Charles Handy
(1995) also echoed this perspective in Gods of Management with his concept of cultural
propriety,
Which holds that what matters is getting the right culture in the right place for the
right purpose.…It is a low-definition theory, one that suggests rather than
prescribes and that is loose enough to allow room for the intuitive and the creative
interpretation. (p. 4)
Handy offered a four-part framework for classifying and understanding management
styles and organizational cultures: Zeus “club culture,” Apollonian structure, Athenian
task orientation, and Dionysian communal/existential culture. Similarly, in Olympus, Inc.

(2010) Neville and Dalmau provided case studies of specific organizational behaviors
and dynamics as examples of mythological archetypes playing out beneath the surface of
organizations. Bowles (1989) also discussed the role of myth and organizational
ceremony at work, and emphasized that “the work organization, for many, has come to be
seen as the creator of meaning in a confused world, where identification and commitment
to the management and organization ethos, can provide opportunities and rewards” (p.
411).
Although Hillman did not thoroughly articulate an archetypal perspective on
organizational development, he noted that when using this archetypal interpretive lens,
“managerial skill becomes psychological perception, which in turn becomes mythological
reflection—that is, a mythic sensibility regarding the roots of trouble [in an
organization]” (1995, p. 225). This mythological lens, then, serves by depersonalizing
issues and presenting them as patterns that may be understood from an archetypal
perspective. Thus, Hillman implied, an organization’s ability to be self-reflective directly
correlates with its ability to engage with pathology and move through it toward higher
functioning, toward individuation.
Joseph Campbell’s seminal work on the archetypal hero’s journey and the
individuation process (1949) has also influenced depth-oriented organizational
development theorists. Bowles (1989) discussed Campbell’s four functions of a properly
operating mythology from an organizational perspective. He noted that the function of
mythology is particularly salient within the workplace when it serves “[t]o socialize the
individual in his/her social group so that he/she can be relied on to identify with the
‘sentiments’ of the group and thereby support the values, attitudes, and forms of
expression of the group” (p. 408). Although it is not explicitly modeled on Campbell’s
writings, a best-selling organizational change management manual by William Bridges
(2009) reflects the departure-initiation-return motif of the archetypal hero’s journey
(Campbell, 1949). Bridges frames organizational change as a three-part process of letting
go and ending, transitioning and re-patterning, and emerging to a new beginning, which
has much in common with Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s work on the stages of grief (1969).
This brief review of the literature implies that while archetypal patterns that create
mythological motifs may not be consciously recognized in much of mainstream
organizational development literature, their influence is nevertheless apparent.
Archetypes and the Organizational Psyche
Archetypes and their mythological manifestations are not unknown within the
field of organizational development. Several theorists have used a conceptual framework
similar to that of analytical psychology (diagnosis of unconscious patterns or influences)
without being explicitly based in Jung’s perspective. Adams (1993) described
organizational metapatterns that comprise the tacit level of interpersonal and group
interaction in organizations, which he also referred to as preconscious or unconscious.
Adams linked the tacit level of organizational functioning to other levels of analysis
within organizations and discussed the implications of metapatterns for study of
organizations. He also used the metaphor of contagion to describe how destructive
archetypal metapatterns can be generated by those in leadership positions (especially
within bureaucracy) and spread quickly between individuals. For Adams, multiple
metapatterns combine into an overall organizational personality.

Pamela Buckle (2003), who also published as Pamela Henning (2007), also
acknowledged the manifestation of unconscious patterns within organizations, and
recognized that organizations spontaneously self-organize into patterns of behavior and
emotion. She noted that “many of the thoughts, moods, choices and behaviours that
occur in systems like workplaces may be seen as expressions of unrecognised self-
organised patterns” (2007, p. 178). Within her writings, these patterns are not explicitly
rooted in the concept of archetype as understood within the field of analytical
psychology. However, Henning did discuss the importance of recognizing self-organized
behavioral patterns in workplaces. These she described as patterned and stable, yet
paradoxically dynamic (p. 179), which match key aspects of archetypes as described by
Hillman (1975, p. xiv). Henning also identified a technique called archetype translation
strategy for epistemic pattern analysis in organizational study, which includes a process
of “central axis identification” that includes recognition of shared affect, unifying
symbols, system dynamics, and causal mechanics. Although rooted in complexity
theory, her approach has much in common with the depth psychological concept of
archetype.
The publication of Peter Senge’s highly influential organizational development
best-seller The Fifth Discipline (1990) brought a different meaning of the word archetype
into common use within organizational development literature. Rather than defining the
concept in a Jungian sense, Senge used the word to describe prototypical organizational
systems and their dynamics. An archetype as defined by Senge is a predictable and easily
typed blueprint of organizational function and dysfunction, a “set of structures and
systems that reflects a single interpretive scheme” (Greenwood & Hinings, 1993, p.
1052). This is a distinct departure from their definition and function within depth
psychology, which approaches archetypes as unconscious and collective aspects of
psyche.
Within the line of organizational development theory espoused by Senge (1990),
the concept of archetype helps to identify systems level function or dysfunction and can
differentiate whether an incremental or “frame-breaking” organizational change is
occurring. However, for Senge the concept appears to imply no deeper psychological
meaning or function. This definition of archetype is founded in logos-based statistical
analysis of organizational structures conducted by Miller and Friesen (1984) over two
decades, which identified several predictable patterns that Senge described as archetypes.
These findings are seen to “give reasonable support to the ideas that archetypes exist as
intellectual constructs [emphasis added] within institutional sectors and that
organizations tend to seek to organize their structures in terms of those archetypes”
(Greenwood & Hinings 1993, p. 1076). This logos-based/structural frame approach to
organizational behavior has been criticized by organizational development practitioners
and theorists informed by a psychodynamic/symbolic frame, who believe that this
empirically informed approach to organizational development ignores key issues that
underlie the behavior of individuals, small groups, and the total organization itself.
Without a depth perspective, Kets de Vries has argued, “people interested in what truly
happens in organizations are left with a vague awareness that strange things are
occurring, things that they cannot make sense of” (2004, p. 185); in his view this can lead
to a sense of ineffectiveness and helplessness among leaders. However, as Carr noted,

there remains a general “neglect of and resistance to psychodynamic theory in
organizational studies discourse” (2002, p. 482).
Within the body of literature explicating depth-informed approaches to
organizational development, the psychoanalytic (neo-Freudian) perspective is at least as
strongly represented as that of Jungian analytical psychology or Hillmanian archetypal
psychology. Building upon Bion’s theory of three “basic drives” (1961) or basic
assumptions that serve as unconscious blueprints of functioning within groups, a number
of consultants and theorists practicing a psychoanalytic approach to organizational
analysis have contributed to the literature on organizational development. Kets de Vries
(2004, 2011) and Kets de Vries and Miller (1984) have used organizational
psychoanalysis to classify neurotic patterns and behaviors derived from Freudian theory,
such as narcissism and transference, as they manifest in workplaces. Kets de Vries
underscored the importance of acknowledging the unconscious and warned business
practitioners and scholars from “restrict[ing] themselves to a very mechanical view of life
in the workplace” when they only look at surface phenomena and ignore deep structures
(2004, p. 183). Kets de Vries provided examples of narcissism and leadership,
transference, and dysfunctional group psychodynamics. He also described “authentizoic”
organizations that have successfully changed following analysis and have become
authentic, true to their values, and vital to the lives of their employees and the
communities they serve. This concept is very similar to the Jungian concept of
organizational individuation. Other psychoanalytically informed organizational
development theorists include Colman (2015), Czander (1993), Diamond (1993), Gabriel
(1991, 1999), Hirschhorn and Barnett (1993), and Kilburg (2000). True to psychoanalytic
tradition, examples of psychoanalytic organizational development practice are generally
presented as case studies.
A less extensive body of work describes and applies Jungian archetypal
organizational theory. The paucity of work in this area may be influenced by Jung’s own
overwhelmingly negative response to the influences of groups on individual
psychological development. Singer and Kimbles (2004) noted in The Cultural Complex
that while Jung was
keenly attuned to what we now call the cultural unconscious or the cultural level
of psyche [he] was so suspicious of the life of groups and the danger of archetypal
possession in collective life that he tended to divorce the development of the
individual from the individual’s life in groups. (pp. 3-4)
However, contemporary theorists have also shared this perspective; Carr (2002) echoed
Jung’s concern from a contemporary context, noting the dangerous situation that occurs
when “individuals assimilate their identity such that they mirror that which the
organization seeks as an ideal-type, or perhaps even an ‘archetypal’ image within the
organization” (p. 482).
Indeed, Jung focused his professional and personal attention on the development
of the individual psyche, as well as the collective unconscious that he believed forms a
psychological substrate for all humanity. He did not extend his analytical psychology to
organizations, and his few references to organizations paint them in extremely negative
terms as dysfunctional collectives whose function is antithetical to the individuation of
the personal psyche. Stein and Hollwitz (2015) noted that “Jung regarded organizations
with suspicion and tended to see them as inimical to the process of individuation,” (p. vii)
which he understood to be an introverted process. The relative dearth of analytical
organizational psychology literature may be based in Jung’s own negative organizational
complex, in which the normal spectrum of expressions of a particular archetype became
frozen and emotionally charged and which manifested in his consistently and
emphatically negative view of organizational culture.
Singer and Kimbles (2004) noted that Jung’s dream of a map of Europe covered
with blood described in his memoir (Jung, 1989), along with his firsthand experience of
living in a Europe possessed by the cultural complex of Wotan (Jung, 1936/2014, pp.
179-193), created within him a “dread of the individual and group psyche falling into
possession by collective and archetypal forces” (Singer & Kimbles, 2004, p. 4). The
authors have suggested that due to these traumatic events, the therapy of organizations—
which focuses on a theoretical middle ground between the individual psyche and the
collective unconscious, and is influenced by both—fell into the “Jungian shadow” (p. 4)
almost a century ago, and has since remained in a sort of theoretical no-man’s land.
However, despite Jung’s negative attitude toward group psychology, examples of
a more moderate attitude to organizational influences on the individual psyche do exist
within the Jungian literature. Jung’s protégé Joseph Henderson, whose work described
the cultural level of the psyche, took a more measured approach to the threat of group
influence on the individual by noting that “one must avoid two dangers: that of too much
individuality or of too much collectivity” (1964, p. 23). Stein and Hollwitz (2015), who
edited a book of essays on workplace applications of Jungian analytical psychology, also
warned against the dangers of participation mystique at work. They noted that a
tendency to enter into unconscious identity with an aspect of work—a particular role,
function, or position—is most likely based in the influence of “an archetype that the
group psyche needs to have represented and enacted, and the individual’s unconscious is
ready to identify with the needed archetype and to participate in it” (p. 9). However, they
also noted that in these cases, personal individuation may be supported by involvement
with groups when the individual is able to break away from the organization’s archetypal
pull to enter a state of unio mentalis that is connected to the organization yet
differentiated, where “one holds a conscious attitude toward the nature and symbolic
significance of the role one is playing in the organization” (p. 14).
These reflections from Stein and Hollwitz (2015) are from a volume that includes
writings from a variety of authors on such topics as individuation at work, the parallels
between evaluation and Jungian analysis, organizational shadow, and the transcendent
function at work. Stein and Hollwitz noted that organizational development praxis and
Jungian analysis have many parallels. They described their aim to explore opportunities
for individuation by asking “how individuals may develop and grow psychologically
within the context of organizational life and how organizations themselves may reflect
individuation themes in their structures and structural changes” (p. vii). A chapter in this
book (Colman, 2015) focused on the practice of depth consultation to organizations,
which the author described as a “marriage between Jungian analysis and organizational
consultation” (p. 92) that helps organizations to individuate.
Additional examples of an explicitly Jungian approach to organizational change
management with the goal of organizational individuation focus on identification of
archetypal patterns manifesting in organizations. These writings emphasize the
importance of making these patterns conscious in order to integrate aspects of the

organizational shadow and become more free from eruptions of difficult-to-manage
unconscious material. Blake and Henning (2011) proposed that “just as unconscious
processes regulate an individual psyche, unconscious processes strive to regulate
organizations” (p. 37), and posited that the Self—Jung’s concept for the archetype of
psychic wholeness—regulates the organizational psyche in much the same way it
regulates the individual psyche (p. 34). These authors described nine historical case
studies of Jungian dynamics at play in organizations with varying levels of consciousness
of their shadow material, including examples of puer/senex polarity and the emergence of
organizational adaptability by means of the transcendent function in organizational
development. They also warned against the dangers of organizational shadow material,
noting that
organizations ignorant of the presence of the self—and its capacity to regulate the
corporate ego—miss opportunities for wholeness, vitality, and contribution to
society. If, instead, people working within organizations learn to detect the
presence of the self as it is regulating the organizational psyche, the corporate ego
may begin to engage consciously with the corporate self. (pp. 50-52)
These authors provided an explicitly Jungian reference to the organizational psyche and
its opportunities for individuation.
Bowles (1990, p. 408) has also noted the crucial role of archetypes within
organizational experience; to his mind they “are the means by which organizational
experience is shaped and catalogued. They represent the ‘schema’ which underlie
thought and sense-making capacity.” He also noted the universal nature of archetypes,
which he described as “deep structures [that] correspond to notions currently employed in

nuclear physics (Bohm, 1980) in explaining the ‘implicate structures’ which contain the
unfolded empirical reality” (p. 408). Bowles provided examples of organizational
persona and shadow, describes the balancing of logos, eros, anima and other key forces,
and connects organizational psychology to the collective unconscious via “objective
psyche.”
Three different groups of Jungian theorists have created twelve-archetype rubrics
for interpreting patterns of archetypal expression within organizations. Paul Moxnes
(1998, 1999) posited twelve archetypal roles that emerge within organizations, based
upon deep family patterns experienced by individuals. Kostera (2012) offered narratives
describing twelve key archetypes that manifest as organizational traits: Self, Shadow,
Anima, Animus, Persona, Sage, King, Adventurer, Trickster, Eternal Child, Gaia, and
Cosmogony. Pearson (2003) also offered a twelve-part rubric for archetypal
organizational analysis and developed a survey instrument—the Organizational Team
and Culture Indicator (OTCI)™—that identifies the relative strength of manifestation of
the archetypes of Ruler, Creator, Innocent, Sage, Explorer, Revolutionary, Magician,
Hero, Lover, Jester, Everyperson, and Caregiver within an organization by comparing the
frequency of occurrence of key traits related to these archetypes that manifest within
organizational culture and behavior. The OTCI™ report (Pearson, 2003) provided a
framework for individual assessment of an organization based upon a single
administration of the survey instrument to employees. The author described how results
could help employees understand and avoid “getting pulled into counterproductive
dramas,” recognize personal and organizational motivations, understand unwritten
cultural taboos, work more effectively, and help to find a good match between employees
and their workplace culture (p. v). The OTCI™ Professional Report interpreted
aggregate archetypal frequency scores of surveys administered to multiple members of an
organization to identify patterns of archetypal expression within an organization based on
specific characteristics associated with the particular archetypes. For example, an
organization or brand that strongly expresses the Innocent evokes a happy family “with
managers in parental roles and employees in the role of dependent children” (p. 19) and
provides predicable and wholesome products. In contrast, an organization that strongly
expresses the Revolutionary encourages innovation and unconventional behaviors, and
may turn a blind eye to breaking of conventions (or even laws) in the service of values (p.
27).
Building upon the OTCI™, Corlett and Pearson (2003) have translated Jung’s
map of the individual psyche into an organizational framework, based in the assertion
that organizations have as much capacity to individuate as do individuals. Corlett and
Pearson’s map of the organizational psyche includes an organizational unconscious that
contains the organizational shadow, organizational complexes, and the Archetype of
Organization, which is constituted by twelve core archetypes and which correlates to the
archetype of Self within an individual (pp. 13-24). They set forth four worksheets that
guide an organization through key analytical tasks (plotting the organizational psyche,
identifying pitfalls, identifying pathways to organizational wholeness, and integration).
Corlett and Pearson also identify questions to analyze four zones of organizational
consciousness. These examine the organizational boundary (brand identity and
projections), issues in the center of organizational consciousness, organization

complexes, and issues on the cusp of the organizational unconscious (shadow, self-
awareness, synchronicity, and acausal breakthroughs) (pp. 117-135).
Other Jungian approaches to organizational development have focused on
identification and integration of organizational shadow material. According to Kostera
(2012), this is a particularly important aspect of organizational change management
within bureaucratic institutions because management’s need for control of people’s
behavior increases during times of change. During these times, Kostera noted, “the
stricter the control, the more favorable the opportunities for the development of the
shadow that starts influencing the process of change and the very culture of the
organization” (p. 31). Feldman (2004) described the importance of integrating shadow
material toward a process of organizational individuation, “a process that occurs at a
social level and which involves the integration of the ‘other,’ as viewed in terms of
ethnicity, gender, and cultural/social background” (p. 251). Although Feldman does not
propose a specific methodology for identifying organizational shadow, this variety of
organizational development practice is solidly based in Jung’s theory of individuation,
which involves integration of the internal “other” in the form of shadow aspects of the
personal and collective psyche.
Another approach promoted by Allen and Dyer (1980), the Norms Diagnostic
Index, is based on the concept that an organizational unconscious influences individual
and group behavior. However, it does not take a specifically psychoanalytic, Jungian, or
archetypal approach, seeking instead to identify dysfunctional group norms and create
change by modifying them. This Likert scale survey, which is administered to employees
of an organization, consists of 36 statements with five response options that measure the
respondent’s level of agreement. These statements are grouped into seven categories:
organizational norms regarding performance facilitation, employees’ emotional
involvement in their jobs, opportunities for new employee orientation and ongoing
training, leader-subordinate interaction (e.g., leaders’ concern, approachability, and
follow-up), efficiency and effectiveness of policies and procedures, norms regarding
confrontation, and supportive climate (e.g., avoidance of blame, excitement, enthusiasm).
The authors have noted that their “action-oriented survey instrument” offers a detailed
picture of this beneath-the-surface aspect of life in particular organizations (p. 194).
However, at closer look the survey measures do not appear to aim to identify aspects of
organizational shadow in a Jungian sense, but rather assess more superficially apparent
aspects of organizational culture and function within the seven categories. The authors
also did not describe the process by which they help organizations to integrate
unconscious material identified in the analysis, and offered a rather cursory overview of
this process of organizational individuation:
Fortunately, the process of identifying current problem patterns in organizations is
far less laborious than might at first be assumed. It can often be a matter of simply
asking the right questions of people who experience the negative effects of the
dysfunctional norms. (p. 193)
Following administration of the survey for organizational diagnosis, the authors
described making change via a “normative systems change process” that involved
analysis and objective setting, introduction of the desired culture, implementation of the
desired culture, and activities to sustain and renew the culture.

A specifically archetypal approach to organizational assessment is the Dalmau
Neville Archetypology Indicator (Neville & Dalmau, 2010), which is described by the
authors as an organizational education and consulting tool. The tool identifies the
activity of archetypal patterns of behavior represented by twelve Olympian deities that, in
the words of the authors, represent “specific constellations of attitudes and behaviors
which we found demonstrated in the organizations we studied” (p. 310). Rather than
focusing on developing an instrument with strong reliability and validity, the authors
concerned themselves with the “instrument’s ability to raise the respondent’s awareness
of the presence or absence of certain patterns in the life of their organization, and in its
ability to give us useful information about the organization’s underlying story” (p. 314).
The instrument has not been published, and as of the date of publishing of this
manuscript, no case studies using this instrument are available in the literature other than
those described in Olympus, Inc. (Neville & Dalmau, 2010).
Organizations and the Archetype of Continuous Improvement
Several authors have offered case studies describing manifestations of particular
archetypal patterns within organizations. Smith and Elmes (2002) described how the
transformations of consciousness represented in the story of Job are relevant to the ways
that organizational leaders face unpredictable and turbulent circumstances. Other
explorations of this kind include examples of the Hero (Moxness, 2013), masculine
leadership archetypes (Tallman, 2003), the godlike leader (Gabriel, 1997), the goddess
Athena (Drucker, 2003), and the mother archetype in organizations (Jacobson, 1993).
Stivers (2002), who approaches the concept of public leadership from a feminist
perspective, has identified several patriarchal models of leadership within modern public
agencies that combine aspects of heroic leadership with other archetypal qualities. These
include protector-leaders who serve as “guardians of the polity and of the individual
rights of its members” (p. 87), and conservator-leaders (Terry, 1990), who preserve
“institutional integrity” and maintain “distinctive competence” of an organization
(Stivers, 2002, p. 61). In addition to an “administrator as citizen” model based in the
ethics of the democratic tradition (p. 102), Stivers also described a Hamiltonian “seeker
after fame, honor and reputation” leadership pattern informed by a gentleman’s code of
honor and driven by a heroic desire to be a “maker of a mark on history” (p. 92). She
also notes the existence of a visionary leadership model in which leaders are separated
from the polity and empowered by “the centuries-old association between vision and the
kind of cognition typically seen as masculine” (p. 65).
Stivers’ feminist critique noted the elitism inherent in these patriarchal leadership
models; she points out that the rights of citizenship have not historically applied to all
people, and notes that within these models “citizens are in need of protection not only
from the depredations of those who would deprive them of their rights but also from the
results of their own selfishness, ignorance, and irrationality” (p. 87). Stivers’ work is
particularly relevant to this inquiry due to her discussion of non-heroic leadership models
based in equalization of power and the more traditionally feminine models. She pointed
out the need for “bringing into public life a set of qualities that are…seen as actively
subversive…[and] represent an incursion of the emotional, affiliative, selfless (therefore
weak) feminine into the rational, enlightened, self-interested, autonomous masculine” (p.
106).
Other authors have described the archetype of heroic change that is nearly
ubiquitous in processes of contemporary organizational development. This archetype is
exemplified by the methodology of continuous quality improvement, which is grounded
in the scientific method of serial experimentation; relies upon objective, empirical data to
analyze and inform processes; and focuses on impersonal improvements and
standardization of processes rather than upon individual performance (Graham, 1995).
As Hillman (1995) has noted, this methodology is rooted in the Western idea that
progress and growth (improvement) are good, a foundational value of American culture
that has roots in Social Darwinism. Indeed, from Hillman’s perspective, the very concept
of growth has an evocative heroic message with a paternalistic flavor; in Kinds of Power
(1995), he wrote that the message “grow or die” “stands like a Victorian grandfather
clock pressuring our lives twenty-four hours a day” (p. 29).
Within this framework, “there are always more at the bottom than at the top, more
weeds than hybrid roses, so hierarchy is natural” (Hillman, 1995, p. 28). Relationships
between members of hierarchical organizations focused on heroic improvement via
growth are typically underscored by a sense of competition that is caused by scarcity of
resources and is based upon fitness for survival. Jungian organizational development
theorist Monika Kostera (2012) has described the ubiquitous nature of this competition:
“Scarce and depleting resources are one of the most vital problems of our times…people
representing business organizations and states are worrying where and how to acquire
resources, how to manage them and avoid wastage” (pp. 10-11).
Kostera has also noted that the most common response to competition for
resources within this heroic model of organizational change is an “obsession with growth
and efficiency simultaneously, and getting rid of aspects of business that do not generate
profit” (p. 10). Hillman also noted that the archetype of growth is balanced and
companioned by the contrasting value of efficiency, and therefore requires “careful
measurement, thinking in numbers and decisions based on them” (1995, p. 30). Thus
from an archetypal perspective, organizations caught in the heroic drive for progress
defined as combined growth and efficiency are especially challenged to develop self-
awareness by identifying their own shadow material and archetypal patterning. “Because
the movement of classic heroism is forward and upward,” Hillman noted, “the most
difficult of all tasks for heroic consciousness is looking inward into its own drive, the
myth that propels it toward its cruel end” (p. 31). This perspective simultaneously points
to the importance of the development of organizational self-awareness, and describes
why the ultimate goal of organizational individuation is such a challenging aspiration to
achieve.
One of the greatest challenges in organizational development—and a frequently
described side effect of the heroic drive for organizational growth and progress—is
change fatigue. Kostera (2012) underscored the pervasive nature of change within
organizational culture, and noted that the kind of surface-level changes that are often the
focus of continuous quality improvement and performance management are not sufficient
for true enhancement of organizational self-awareness toward individuation. She wrote,
“change, authentic and profound, and not the superficial and disposable managed
solutions [such as continuous quality improvement], must take into consideration the
needs and abilities of people involved in it” (p. 11).

Jungian psychologist Lionel Corbett (2016) described processes of change as
transitional periods that hold a liminal quality, and noted that the suffering that occurs as
part of the process of change is an archetypal experience. This he described as a three-
fold process that involves ending, transition, and reincorporation, and which frames an
adjustment of consciousness that can have profoundly positive implications. Suffering
that leads to a rite of passage and initiation into a new state of consciousness, he noted, is
an important archetypal process and is purposive in its service to individuation.
However, we may also infer that the converse is true. When—as commonly occurs in
organizational settings—a heroic process of change becomes relentlessly continuous and
does not allow sufficient time for reincorporation and reintegration, the suffering
becomes Sisyphean and change becomes burdensome rather than transcendent. In
contrast to this common outcome, when the integration of opposing aspects of
organizational psyche takes place—especially when mediated by the sacred feminine
(Elsner, 2017)—change becomes an alchemical process of renewal that provides
profound opportunities for reconnection to the organizational Self. This perspective is
echoed by Smith and Elmes (2002), who described the importance of integrating the
sacred feminine and other cultural shadow material during times of intense organizational
change, forces that can enable a new order to emerge via the transcendent function of
psyche.
Organizational Renewal and the Public Health Identity Crisis
While the literature contains a number of theoretical works and case studies that
connect organizational development and depth psychology, there are few examples that
apply the principles discussed above with public health modernization processes or
related endeavors. Thus, the confluence of these three disciplines provides opportunities
for weaving together disparate threads of theory and practice into a coherent new field of
inquiry.
An influential report from the Institute of Medicine (2008) defined the mission of
public health as “fulfilling society’s interest in assuring conditions in which people can
be healthy” and emphasized the important role that states must play within the U.S.
public health system. However, the report also noted chronic under-funding of public
health, described disarray within the system, and acknowledged the “tension between
professional expertise and politics” (p. 4) that often hampers governmental efforts to
support the health of citizens. The report also described a lack of consensus within the
field about public health’s scope and role.
A close reading of the report’s recommendations also indicates a paradox that lies
at the heart of public health’s identity crisis. Rather than directly supporting social
conditions and primary prevention initiatives that promote long term health and
wellbeing of entire populations, public health instead often focuses on secondary or
tertiary prevention, which mitigate existing risk and disease, respectively. Even were
public health to be eventually successful in eradicating disease, the public will require
more than the absence of disease to achieve a state of health as intended in the World
Health Organization’s definition. Although reporting mechanisms like Healthy People
2020 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2016) are an attempt to quantify
progress toward reducing health barriers and enabling health-promoting behaviors, the
field of public health has not yet fully articulated how it might achieve the World Health
Organization’s ultimate vision of health for all.

A follow-up Institute of Medicine report published in 2012 described not only a
continued crisis within public health, but dire consequences should the crisis continue.
The “failure of the health system (which includes medical care and governmental public
health) to develop and deliver effective preventive strategies,” it noted, “is taking a large
and growing toll not only on health, but on the nation’s economy” (p. 1). The report’s
major recommendations were to modernize the field by establishing adequate, sustainable
funding sources for government public health, to reform the governmental public health
infrastructure, and to shift away from public health providing clinical care and toward
informing it with population-based approaches. Similarly, DeSalvo et al., (2016) called
for the need for profound re-invention via a paradigm shift to “public health 3.0,” which
he described as “a modern version that emphasizes cross sector collaboration and
environmental, policy, and systems-level actions that directly affect the social
determinants of health” (p. 4).
This inquiry examines the process of movement through a crisis of identity
toward organizational individuation by means of a case study of a public health agency,
the OPHD, which is in a process of profound organizational change following the 2012
Institute of Medicine report. The organization has already undertaken key foundational
work to support this change. This has included accreditation, a process by which
governmental entities seek to demonstrate renewed commitment to serving citizens
effectively and efficiently. As articulated by the Public Health Accreditation Board
(PHAB), the goal of accreditation is to “improve and protect the health of the public by
advancing the quality and performance of Tribal, state, local, and territorial public health
departments” (Public Health Accreditation Board, 2016b). Accreditation recognizes a

public health department’s achievement of a set of nationally recognized standards,
which include completion of internal and external assessments, performance management
process implementation, establishment of quality metrics, and establishment of health
improvement plans and a state health improvement plan (Oregon Public Health Division,
2015). According to the PHAB, “accreditation provides a framework for a health
department to identify performance improvement opportunities, to improve management,
develop leadership, and improve relationships with the community” (PHAB, 2016a).
At the request of the Oregon legislature, a task force has overseen an assessment
of gaps in organizational capacity within the state’s public health system and has made
recommendations for system overhaul, a process billed as Public Health Modernization
(HB 2348 Future of Public Health Services Task Force, 2014). Recommendations call
for healing splits in the fragmented state public health system by regionalizing the state’s
35 local health authorities and re-focusing these entities upon foundational programs and
capabilities. Foundational capabilities include leadership and organizational
competencies, health equity and cultural responsiveness, community partnership
development, assessment and epidemiology, policy and planning, communications, and
emergency preparedness and response. The four recommended foundational programs
include communicable disease control, prevention and health promotion, environmental
health, and access to clinical preventive services rather than direct provision of clinical
care.
Precedents for Archetypal Organizational Analysis of Public Health
This inquiry employs a Jungian model of organizational psyche (Corlett &
Pearson, 2003) to analyze the interplay of archetypes within OPHD as a methodology for
informing its modernization process. This work will build upon OPHD’s communication
initiatives that used the Bridges (2009) “letting go/neutral zone/new beginnings” model
of organizational change management, which reflects the ending, transition, and
reincorporation stages of the hero’s journey (Campbell, 1949).
The Oregon Health Authority and Public Health Division have undertaken several
key organizational development tasks that have required significant introspective and
externally oriented group processes. These include establishment of the core values of
service excellence, leadership, integrity, partnership, innovation, health equity (Oregon
Health Authority, n.d.) and development of the State Health Improvement Plan (Oregon
Public Health Division, 2015). However, there is no indication within the public health
literature or within publicly available documents that any state-level public health
authority in the United States has undergone an analysis of archetypal patterns
manifesting within its organizational psyche.
Precedents for this approach do exist within related fields, however. Within
corporate culture, Grant (2005) conducted a study of the hero’s journey, and Szafir
(2014) explored applications for Jungian archetypal theory. Bellavita (1991) applied the
mythical call to adventure/ordeal/return model of the archetypal hero’s journey to public
administration by presenting case studies of leaders who “helped to revitalize the
kingdom” (p. 182) by means of their leadership. He identified ten characteristics of
heroic public leadership: achievement of success, exercise of power, overcoming
constraints, use of skills, professional or personal growth, risk taking, creativity, pressure
to perform, receipt of a reward, and pursuit of goals compatible with personal values (p.
157).
Vogelsong’s dissertation (2013) took a mythological and archetypal approach to
collective individuation; using the city of Portland, Oregon as her case study she
developed a four-stage model of the organizational individuation process. Robinson
(2011) undertook a mythologically informed study of the archetype of the nurse, and
several authors, including Thangathurai (2015) and DeVita (2014) have explored the
wounded healer archetype as it relates to healing professions using autoethnographic and
phenomenological approaches. Shearer’s (2012) exploration of archetypal and
mythological undercurrents within the long history of disharmony between depth
psychology organizations also sheds light on possible archetypal influences that may be
at play between Oregon’s state and local health authorities.
Three additional articles provide perspectives of particular relevance to this
research. Fotaki (2006, 2010) provided a psychoanalytic perspective on an attempt at
organizational change within the British National Health Service—in this case, a failed
effort to increase patient roles in decision making—and explicated the role of fantasy
within public policy making using the perspectives of Bion and Klein. Using case study
methodology and historical comparative analysis, Lombard (1987, 1990) offered an
application of Jungian psychology to organizational development theory, and described
how she used an archetypal lens to analyze the evolution of a public mental hospital by
outlining story lines and tensions, plots, and subplots. Finally, a study by Smetana (2007)
attempted to test whether organizational archetypal analysis would yield similar findings
via ethnographic study and administration of the OTCI™. Results from this study were
promising but mixed. Although Smetana’s research focused on a non-profit organization

rather than a governmental bureaucracy, it does provide an example of archetypal
analysis conducted by an organizational insider.
Summary
Analytical and archetypal psychologists have traditionally focused their attention
on the development of individuals (individuation) rather than on organizational
individuation processes. However, this review reflects areas of connection between the
disciplines of organizational psychology and analytical/archetypal psychology.
Examples of theoretical and practical overlap include organizational development
initiatives undertaken within the symbolic frame that take mythological and archetypal
approaches. Additionally, this review of the literature indicates that while organizational
development approaches—in particular, quality improvement initiatives—are commonly
undertaken in the public sector, few precedents exist for archetypally informed
organizational development research and practice within government agencies.

Chapter 3. Methodology
Research Approach
This research project is a descriptive case study conducted under the rubric of
integral inquiry. This methodology weaves together complementary approaches to
achieve a multi-faceted response to a particular line of inquiry (Braud, 1998, p. 36) and
evokes Jung’s statement that “ultimate truth, if there be such a thing, demands the concert
of many voices” (Jung, 1993, p. xiv). As such, it is intended to create a rich tapestry of
perspectives, using data gleaned from public documents, focus groups responding to
preliminary findings, and my own experiences as a researcher. This multifaceted
technique is well suited to the inquiry described here because it seeks to dig beneath,
uncover, and—using Hillman’s metaphor—see through (1975, pp. 140-164) surface-level
truth into shadowy terrain.
Research Methodology
This project is a case study of the OPHD. This framing fits well with Gillham’s
(2010, p. 1) definition of a case as a unit of human activity embedded in the real world
that exists here and how, which must be studied and understood in context. However,
this project extends his definition by means of Corbin’s (1972) concept of the mundus
imaginalis, the intermediate plane between spirit and matter, by acknowledging that the
case is embedded in the imaginal realm as well as in concrete reality.
In keeping with the tenets of naturalistic research described by Gillham (2010, p.
7), rather than creating an experimental design, this case study reviews relevant context
and unfolds using an inductive theoretical approach. It acknowledges the subjective

experiences of participants and researcher and the stance of researcher as organizational
development scholar practitioner.
Integral inquiry: A transpersonal approach. Integral inquiry, the approach for
this research, is a transpersonal methodology “concerned with experiences and processes
that go beyond the personal or individual, that go beyond the usual limits of ego and
personality” (Braud, 1998, p. 37). Studies aligned with this flexible methodology seek to
elucidate both the usual and the unusual and use multiple methods, “both traditional and
avant-garde” (p. 29), chosen to triangulate upon a subject.
This methodology is particularly appropriate to the research at hand because it
relies upon multiple types of data, a variety of data sources, diverse methods of collecting
and analyzing data, and means of expressing findings that acknowledge multiple ways of
knowing. The methodology seeks to reflect both definitions of the root word “trans” as
described by Braud (1998, p. 39): as beyond, by looking beneath surface appearances to
manifestations of the collective unconscious; and through, by identifying metaphorical
and archetypal patterns that connect individuals within the agency under study.
True to the integral approach, this research also focuses on the potential for
personal transformation, of how people can become whole. In this case, however, the
methodology documents and examines both the process of achieving wholeness at an
organizational level and my own journey as a researcher. Precedents for use of an
integral approach to organizational research include studies by Movva (2002), Vodicka
(2002), and Ingram (2005).
In keeping with integral inquiry methodology, this research employs multiple
sources of data to answer the research questions: public-facing documents that represent
the organizational persona, responses to the document analysis from members of the
organization under study who represent the organizational consciousness, and my
conscious and unconscious experiences as a scholar practitioner as reflected in journal
entries, dream content, and mandala drawings. The analytical process focuses upon
another core aspect of transpersonal research: interconnectedness between images,
emotion, and other aspects of “archetypal canons” (Neumann, 1949/2007) associated
with the organization, as well as the interconnectedness of experience within the
organization as reflected by participants and researcher. It employs qualitative analysis
as well as quantitative expression of thematic trends.
Ontological stance. The theoretical approach informing my ontological stance is
that of social constructionism, which is based in the proposal that human beings cannot
exist outside of a cultural context (Gadamer, 1975; Heidegger, 1962;). Within the social
constructionist framework, reality is understood to be dynamic, highly subjective, and co-
created. As Cushman (1995, pp. 17-20) described, shared assumptions shape individual
and group experiences of reality; these co-constructed models of the social world
manifest as culture and become reified through language. Within this perspective,
culture—including the organizational culture examined in this study—
Infuses individuals through the social practices of the everyday world, shaping
and forming in the most fundamental ways how humans conceive of the world
and their place within it…[including] where they are located in a hierarchical
structure of local power relations. (p. 17)
My stance as a researcher departs from social constructionism, however, regarding the
question of whether human beings lack a unified trans-historical, transcultural nature.

My perspective is informed by Jung’s theory of the collective unconscious (Jung,
1933/1959, pp. 5134-5144; Jung, 1936/1959, pp. 42-53; Stein, 1998, p. 88). This deepest
layer of the human psyche, which contains universally held archetypal and instinctual
material, is a transferential field that crosses boundaries of time, place, and culture. In
this inquiry, both the collective unconscious and the social constructionist concept of the
cultural matrix—“composed of language, symbols, moral understanding, rituals, rules,
institutional arrangements of power and privilege, origin myths and explanatory stories”
(Cushman, 1995, p. 17)—are understood to form a common source from which spring
our “psychological flesh and bones” (p. 18). For the purposes of this research, the
cultural matrix includes the embodied experiences of participants and researcher.
Major methodological influences from depth psychology. Jung’s theory of
individuation also strongly influenced the methodology of this study. In the
individuation process, unconscious or pre-conscious material from the personal shadow,
juxtaposed with incompatible conscious material identified with the persona, promotes
the spontaneous eruption of a transcendent third entity that usually manifests in the form
of a symbol. This process moves the individual along the cyclical path toward the true
self. Jung noted that during this process, “a new attitude is created, an attitude that
accepts the irrational and the incomprehensible because it is happening” (Jung, 1997, p.
75). In this research I have aspired to embrace and cultivate an accepting attitude of
imaginal consciousness, which Downing has described as “a mode of perception that is
not literal nor objectifying but symbolic, associative, personal, feeling-toned” (2005, pp.
196-197).
Hillman’s archetypal psychology, another major influence on this methodology
that builds upon the work of C. G. Jung, leads us “to envision the basic nature and
structure of the soul in an imaginative way and to approach the basic questions of
psychology first of all by means of the imagination” (1975, p. xiii). An archetypal
approach calls for a critical, soul-based “re-visioning” that peels away layers of
assumption and institutionalized experience, using the tools of seeing through and of
notitia—“that capacity to form true notions of things from attentive noticing” (Hillman,
1982, p. 115)—which Hillman described as “a primary activity of the soul” (p. 115).
Seeing through involves four simultaneously occurring steps: deepening and
personalization (interiorizing), analysis of symptom (pathologizing), connection to story
(mythologizing using a polytheistic lens), and production of ideas (1975, pp. 140-141).
Hillman also emphasized the importance of metaphor in this developmental process. He
described metaphor as “an instrument of soul-making” that transposes the soul’s
questioning about its nature to a mythopoesis of actual imagining” (2004, p. 32).
This research uses an archetypal perspective and methods to examine the
metaphorical and symbolic underlay to a socially constructed image within anima
mundi—in this case, of a bureaucratic agency that aims to improve health. Jungian
Organization Theory (Corlett & Pearson, 2003), another major influence upon this
research, recognizes that mapping the psyche of an organization requires an imaginal
methodology that identifies projections, owns the collective shadow, de-energizes
complexes, and enters into dialogue with the collective unconscious (p. 55). This
research analyzes an organization by mapping archetypal influences within the
organizational boundary/brand identity zone of OPHD’s organizational psyche and by

collaborating with the organization’s center of consciousness (agency leaders), in an
attempt to hold a mirror up to the organizational ego. As in personal analysis, this
process has the potential to increase self-knowledge and withdraw projections. This
research is also informed by a somatic perspective that acknowledges the experience of
the bodies of the participants and researcher as valid and valued contributors to data
collection, analysis, presentation, and meaning-making.
Overview of the Research Process
This research consisted of three major steps. The first two of these were designed
to enable me to answer the research questions using an adaptation of Corlett and
Pearson’s (2003) process for analysis of organizational brand identity and organizational
consciousness while working within financial and organizational constraints that made
collection of primary data directly from OPHD employees via interviews or by using the
OTCI™ (Pearson, 2003) organizational archetype survey instrument infeasible.
In lieu of survey or interview results, I first analyzed key organizational texts that
represent the organization’s brand identity or “public face” in the public health
modernization process via the division’s public health modernization website. This
process focused on analysis of the organizational boundary (persona) and generated data
to answer the first research question: What archetypes are active within the
organizational psyche of OPHD? See Appendix A for a list of included texts. Criteria
for choosing texts for this analysis included a publishing date (or, in the case of non-dated
documents, a web posting date) between July 1, 2015 and November 30, 2017. This
criterion ensured that documents included in the analysis had been created following the
passage of House Bill 3100, which set the official agenda for the public health
modernization process. Text analysis sought to identify the frequency, balance, and
character of the 12 organizational archetypes comprising the Archetype of Organization
model set forth in Mapping the Organizational Psyche (Corlett & Pearson, 2003). As a
guide for this process I developed a coding matrix (Appendix B) of key concepts and
descriptors of the archetypes gleaned from the OTCI™ survey instrument and Mark and
Pearson’s further interpretation of these archetypes and their qualities in The Hero and
the Outlaw (2001).
Next, I checked the accuracy of this analysis and enriched my perspective on the
organizational psyche by presenting my initial findings to focus groups made up of
executive leaders and managers representing the organizational consciousness described
by Corlett and Pearson (2003). To develop a perspective that included as representative a
sampling of the organization as possible within resource and time constraints, I also
conducted focus groups with union-represented staff and employees who had recently
retired or resigned from OPHD. I included these former employees to benefit from their
unique and unfiltered perspective upon the preliminary results of the organizational
analysis. I designed the focus group protocol to provide an accuracy check on the
document analysis results, gather information on participants’ emotional and somatic
responses to the analysis (a literal “gut check”), and elicit responses to the second
research question: How might this archetypal analysis help to inform the organization’s
development and modernization? The four focus groups thus provided a means to “see
through” the organizational persona from various perspectives within and outside of the
organization. Analysis of the focus group data built upon and fine-tuned the
organizational analysis and my initial response to the second research question.

Finally, I triangulated these results with transferential data from my journals,
focus group field notes, dreams, and mandala drawing practice. I collected these data
throughout the data coding and analysis process, which lasted from October 2017 through
April 2018. These multiple, iterative stages of data collection and analysis sought to
invoke the cyclical nature of the hermeneutic circle (Palmer, 1969).
The three phases of this research paralleled the process of individual analysis
whereby the analyst interacts with the ego of the analysand in an attempt to deconstruct
the persona. In this case, I acted as an organizational analyst conducting archetypal
analysis of the agency’s persona as a means to open dialogue with the organizational
consciousness as represented by focus group participants. I also analyzed my own
conscious and unconscious experiences during the organizational analysis process via
transferential data, which contributed to a deeper perspective on the organization’s
archetypal balance, complexes, and projections.
This process was by no means an exhaustive organizational analysis. Instead, I
intended the process to provide as much insight as possible given organizational, time,
and resource constraints. Further steps in the analysis, including public presentation and
integration of results, will take place following the completion of this research. I have
committed to present my research findings to the agency in November 2018 as part of its
public grand rounds presentation series, and have also committed to facilitate continued
organizational analysis discussions with the OPHD executive team as my availability
allows.
Participants
I recruited four groups of focus group participants to represent as broad a variety
of perspectives within the organizational psyche as was feasible given the time and
resource limitations of this inquiry. Participants included: (a) organizational leaders from
the OPHD Executive Leadership Team, including administrators from the director’s
office and all three division centers; (b) middle managers (section and unit managers); (c)
union represented staff; and (d) former managers and represented employees who had
recently retired or resigned from their positions.
While managers, staff, and ex-employees do not represent specific aspects of the
organizational psyche within Corlett and Pearson’s (2003) model, I included these
perspectives to provide a more broadly representative sample of perspectives, given the
size and complexity of the Oregon Public Health Division. Inclusion of these additional
voices is also true to the transpersonal methodology guiding this inquiry, which sought to
enable “a democratization of the research enterprise, with all personnel contributing
inputs and be[ing] able to comment on a study’s interpretations and conclusions” (Braud
& Anderson, 1998, p. 17). Furthermore, this broad sample of perspectives reflects a
value of the transpersonal methodology, in which “range of sampling is more important
than representativeness of sampling” (Braud, 1998, p. 55).
To further ensure this range via a balance of perspectives across the organization,
I included as varied a sampling of focus group participants as possible. The 31 total
participants included a mix of gender identities (10 male and 21 female) that roughly
represents the gender balance of OPHD’s employees; roughly equivalent numbers of
program staff, data analysts, and administrative staff within the represented and former
employee groups; and five participants who identify as immigrants or people of color.
All groups except the former employee group included participants from the Director’s
Office and each of the three OPHD Centers.
Table 1 lists inclusion and exclusion criteria for participants in the four focus
groups. These criteria ensured that participants had sufficient history within the agency
to thoughtfully reflect upon OPHD’s organizational culture; participants had all worked
in the agency for at least a year during the process of organizational change spurred by
the passage of HB 3100 in July 2015.
A further inclusion criterion requested by the OPHD Science and Epidemiology
Council required all participants to attend an informational meeting about the study or
participate in a recorded personal screening information session prior to participating in
focus groups. This requirement for participation ensured that participants had equal
access to complete, clear information about the scope of the project; the types of data to
be collected; how I planned to report their data; and how I would ensure their privacy.
Following informational meetings, all participants completed a brief online survey to
determine which focus group they were eligible to join. One manager participated in a
private interview in lieu of a focus group due to privacy concerns.

Table 1. Focus Group Participants and Inclusion/Exclusion Criteria
Focus Group Inclusion criteria Exclusion Number Number of

Name (participants must criteria (any of participants
meet all criteria) criterion will qualified
disqualify) recruits
Attendance at Direct report

information session, relationship with
> 1 year of current, the researcher, < 1
Executive
continuous service, year of continuous
Leadership 8 7
> six months on service, or
Team
executive leadership < six months on
members
team exec leadership
team
Direct report
Attendance at
relationship with
information session,
the researcher, < 1
> 1 year of current,
year of continuous
continuous service,
Managers service, or < six 8 8*
supervising
months as
manager for > six
supervising
months
manager

> 1 year of current, the researcher, < 1
Union
continuous service, year of continuous
represented 28 10
represented service, or < six
employees
employee for > six months in current
months position

> 1 year of the researcher, < 1
Former previous, year of continuous
continuous service, service, or current 9 6
employees
separation date employment as
< one year before temporary worker
focus group or contractor
*One manager participated in a private interview in lieu of a focus group due to privacy
concerns.
To avoid potential conflict of interest, I excluded employees with a direct report
relationship to me (my supervisor and the employees I directly supervise).
Materials
I created several materials for this inquiry, including an archetype coding matrix
(Appendix B), an informed consent form, a focus group participant recruitment email, an
eligibility survey, and a focus group protocol. The archetypal analysis coding matrix was
based on archetypal metaphors, descriptors and key concepts related to the 12
organizational archetype categories set forth in the Mapping the Organizational Psyche
(Corlett & Pearson, 2003) and the related Organizational and Team Culture Indicator
(OTCI)™ (Pearson, 2003). The OTCI™ is based in Jungian personality type, archetype
theory, and Campbell’s (1949) monomyth concept, and is a derivative of the Meyers-
Briggs Type Indicator®.
I designed the 120-minute focus group protocol to elicit somatic, cognitive, and
emotional responses to my preliminary document analysis. Building upon a technique I
used in previous focus groups (Chisholm, 2015), I used the VisualsSpeak Image Set® of
88 full-color images in conjunction with a guided imagery exercise in the focus groups to
prompt metaphorical responses. Following a brief visualization exercise, I asked
participants to choose an image from the set and describe how it connects to public health
modernization. This facilitative technique, which is “intended to cue metaphorical,
symbolic, and archetypal, rather than literal, responses,” (p. 16) provided an efficient and
effective means of gathering emotionally charged, somatically informed responses while
minimizing the potential for self-censoring among participants given the workplace
setting of the focus groups.

Research Procedures
Data collection. Data collection took place in three waves: document analysis,
focus groups, and transferential data collection. I began document analysis with a web
search to gather foundational documents of the OPHD’s modernization process published
between July 2015 and October 2017. These 23 key texts were publicly available on the
OPHD modernization website, and included documents related to the PHAB and the
national accreditation process, the State Health Improvement Plan, the Oregon Public
Health Modernization Task Force, and modernization assessments and manuals (see
Appendix A for a full list).
Following completion of the document analysis and informed consent process, I
facilitated the four focus groups described above. In addition to making sound recordings
and inviting participants to share written responses if they chose, I recorded my own
somatic and emotional responses by dictating field notes directly following each group.
I kept the identities of all participants confidential. Individual participant
identities were not included in focus group notes, on transcripts, or in written accounts. I
kept the master list of participants in a password-protected file on a personal computer
unrelated to State of Oregon data systems to reduce the possibility of breach of
confidentiality, and kept informed consent forms in a locked drawer off-site. Although
all focus groups were held in conference rooms at the OPHD main office building, I
avoided making participant identities available via the shared Microsoft Outlook calendar
feature by creating separate calendar invitations for participants that were not accessible
through the conference room reservation system. As an extra precaution, I deleted both
the participant calendar invitation and the conference room reservation following each
focus group to further ensure participant privacy. As part of the participation agreement,
focus group participants also agreed to not divulge information about the identities of
others in their group or share identifiable opinions expressed in the groups.
I recorded primary source electronic sound recordings directly into a password-
protected laptop using Audacity software and recorded a backup file directly onto a
password-protected personal iPhone using the Voice Record application. Within 24
hours of each focus group, I transferred primary and backup sound files onto a password
protected hard drive. All electronic sound recording files, transcripts, and informed
consent documents will be destroyed within 30 days following publication of the
dissertation.
In addition to document analysis and focus group data, I triangulated my
perspective on the research questions by collecting and analyzing transferential data.
From the time of dissertation proposal approval in October 2017 through the end of focus
group data collection and transcription in April 2018, I engaged in weekly mandala
drawing practice as a means of exploring my unconscious responses to this work using
means similar to those used and described by C. G. Jung (1933/1959, pp. 5134-5144;
1961/1989, pp. 195-196). Jung described this practice in his memoir:
I sketched every morning in a notebook a small circular drawing, a mandala,
which seemed to correspond to my inner situation at the time. With the help of
these drawings I could observe my psychic transformations from day to day.…My
mandalas were cryptograms concerning the state of the self which were presented
to me anew each day. (1961/1989, pp. 195-196)

True to the methodology of integral inquiry, which allows for “both conventional and
avant-garde” approaches to data collection (Braud & Anderson, 1998), I designed this
mandala ritual to activate and document my unconscious responses to the unfolding
dissertation process. Once a week, I drew a mandala within a 4.5” diameter circle using
colored pencils and wrote a brief, unstructured journal entry about my dissertation
process during the previous week. Entries included information about emotional and
somatic symptoms, challenges and supporting factors that had emerged related to my
dissertation process, synchronicities, and dream images. I refrained from reviewing the
images or re-reading the journal entries until I began my final phase of data analysis in
April 2018. I also documented my dreams during this period, using the iPhone Voice
Memo application to dictate dreams upon waking and Microsoft Word to hand-transcribe
the recordings.
Data analysis. In case studies, analysis is the process by which data are
triangulated, “systematically dissected, rearranged, organized, and interpreted” (Evers &
Van Staa, 2010). Reflecting the multifaceted integral inquiry process, I made use of
multiple procedures of qualitative and quantitative data analysis. These followed the
hermeneutic circle of reduction and reconstruction via a continuous analysis process
based upon Corlett and Pearson’s (2003) 12-archetype structure, as well as an inductive
approach that identified additional categorizations and themes as the analysis process
unfolded.
During document analysis, I analyzed key texts via close reading using ATLAS.ti
qualitative analysis software. This deductive process focused on analysis of archetypal
characteristics, metaphor, and identification of potential mythological content. I coded

key words and concepts into the 12 archetype and 12 archetype shadow categories
represented in the archetype coding matrix (Appendix B). For example, I coded to the
Caregiver archetype key words such as help, trust, and responsibility; phrases such as
with open arms and caring for the community; and images of a patchwork quilt and an
abundant table. I coded key words such as rules, regulation, and structure, and related
metaphors and images (framework, tools) to the Ruler archetype. See Appendix B for the
full list of terms and concepts used in the coding process. Using qualitative analysis
software enabled me to assign codes at the sentence level to text sections of the
documents, as well as to assign codes to relevant portions of images, diagrams, and tables
within the documents. Following initial document coding, I reviewed and cleaned the
data to ensure accuracy and non-duplication of code assignments.
I coded the 23 documents using a total of 142 concepts within the 12-archetype
model. I also created 24 concept groups, one for each of the 12 archetypes in Corlett and
Pearson’s (2003) model and 12 representing shadow content for each of the archetypes.
Using the software’s relation manager feature, I assigned concepts to each of the 12
archetype concept groups and 12 archetype shadow concept groups. This initial coding
process generated a total of 7,202 text and visual quotations from the 23 documents.
Analysis began with simple counts to describe the frequency of occurrence of key words,
phrases, metaphors, and images associated with each of the 12 archetype categories and
the 12 archetype shadow categories across all of the documents. I also summed the
frequencies of the archetypes that comprise each of the quadrants within the Archetype of
Organization (Results, People, Learning, Stabilizing) to identify the overall balance of
archetype frequencies within the model.

I then created archetype word cloud profiles from the most frequently occurring
concepts within the document data coded to each archetype. These word clouds fleshed
out the character of each of the 12 archetypes and 12 archetype shadows manifested in
terms of positive and negative (shadow) polarity. For example, the Hero archetype
manifested in positive terms (activity, strategy, service) that I coded to the main
archetype, as well as negative terms (disparities, inequity, dependency) that I coded to the
archetype’s shadow. Due to the limitations of the ATLAS.ti software, I had to combine
capabilities of multiple software programs to generate the word clouds. For this process I
exported all text content for each archetype code group from ATLAS.ti into Microsoft
Excel. I then transferred the content to Microsoft Word for data cleaning. This process
consisted of removing extraneous punctuation and adding spaces between words that had
been run together, errors which resulted from my use of PDFs as source documents in my
initial ATLAS.ti coding process. I uploaded the clean Word files into ATLAS.ti and
used its word cruncher function to generate word frequency tables. I then cleaned the
tables to remove numbers, articles, and other non-evocative words. I also grouped related
words such as communicate, communicates, communicator, communicators, and
communication, and summed their frequencies. When grouping different parts of speech,
I defaulted to the first person singular verb form, that is, communicate. When no verb
forms of the word showed up in the frequency table, I defaulted to the singular noun.
Summation of the frequencies of related words enabled me to create word clouds that
accurately represented the relative proportion of concepts that had emerged from the
archetypal frequency analysis. To create the word clouds, I exported the cleaned and
grouped word frequency tables into an online word cloud generator
(https://www.wordclouds.com/).
By analyzing the frequency of the grouped archetypal concepts, I then created a
visual representation of the distribution of the 12 archetypes in each of the four quadrants
of Corlett and Pearson’s (2003) Archetype of Organization by means of a waffle chart
(Figure 2). I also reflected upon the emerging character of the 12 archetype and 4
archetype shadow word clouds. To keep the length of the focus group data presentation
and discussion under 120 minutes, I chose to only reflect upon and present the shadow
content of the four most frequently occurring archetypes (Hero, Ruler, Sage, and
Everyman). The other nine archetype shadow word clouds were much less evocative due
to a small amount of data that resulted in low frequency counts. I have detailed the
results of this initial phase of analysis in Chapter Four and presented the archetype word
clouds in Appendix C.
Following document analysis, I shared my preliminary results with participants in
the four focus groups and elicited their feedback via discussion, self-reflection, optional
written responses, and a guided imagery exercise using the VisualsSpeak Image Set®. I
personally facilitated the focus groups, transcribed all focus group recordings, and
completed field notes following the groups.
Using the Network function within ATLAS.ti, I identified themes and semantic
linkages between and within the four focus group discussions. I first coded the focus
group transcriptions using the archetypal analysis coding matrix (Appendix B). I then
conducted deductive thematic analysis of discussions about each quadrant within the
Archetype of Organization (People, Results, Learning, and Stabilizing), and about each
of the 12 archetype code groups. I created a network within ATLAS.ti for each quadrant
and each archetype by selecting all quotations coded to a particular quadrant or archetype
from the four focus group transcriptions and importing the quotations into the respective
network. I then grouped related concepts into network nodes and identified semantic
relationships between quotations and nodes to create visual maps of the compiled focus
group discussions related to each quadrant and archetype within the Archetype of
Organization. These visual maps guided the written description of focus group results,
which are detailed in Chapter Four.
Following completion of the focus group data coding and analysis, I coded my
experiential data—field notes, dreams, and journal entries—using the same 12-
archetype/12 shadow archetype coding matrix and list of terms and concepts. I used
techniques adapted from the Mandala Assessment Research Instrument or MARI® by
Loumeau-May (2013), which identifies developmental stages of the psyche by assessing
associations to symbol and color, to guide mandala analysis. Each of these data sources
provided a unique perspective on the research questions, helping to identify patterns that
indicate archetypal manifestations within the organizational persona (texts),
organizational ego (focus group data) and shadow (all data sources).
Throughout the process of data collection and analysis, I kept my eyes and ears
attuned to metaphor—a key indicator of archetypal material (Osborn, 1967)—and my gut
attuned to instances of strong emotional content, especially when it appeared to resonate
beyond the individual to the collective level. These instances served as signposts for
deep patterns of psychic functioning that were likely to indicate the influence of shadow
material, especially in the form of complexes.

I specifically inquired into the somatic aspects of the data using network analysis
to identify clusters of symptoms and alchemical metaphors. I employed a simplified
version of the embodied analysis technique described by Chadwick (2012) to listen for
the voice of the participants’ and researcher’s bodies and interpret semiotic energies that
assisted in “potentially mapping alternative, subterranean story-lines” (p. 87) embedded
in the narrative, especially as related to shadow material. As Brooks (2010) noted, in this
methodology “the unintelligible sounds, intonations and rhythms often pruned out of
transcriptions [are] thus repositioned as central to analysis and as an integral part of
‘fleshy’ and embodied meaning-making” (p. 87). Although a detailed embodied analysis
of focus group data was beyond the scope of this inquiry, this technique informed my
methodology by establishing codes for “body” and “laughter.” I used these in my
analysis as markers for somatic references and participants’ reactions to potential shadow
material. I also employed metaphor analysis as described by Schmitt (2005) to identify
archetypal material, paying special attention to “body models” (p. 366) and interpreting
embodied metaphors as reflections of archetypal patterns and alchemical symbolism.
Ethical Considerations
Successful organizational analysis requires an ethical commitment from the
organization under study as well as from the researcher. To clarify my own biases prior
to beginning this work, I self-administered both the Pearson Marr Archetype Indicator™
individual archetype assessment tool (Pearson & Marr, 2003, 2007) and the Organization
and Team Culture Indicator™ tool (Pearson, 2003) to identify my perceptions of the
archetypal balance of OPHD. Results of these two inventories and a brief discussion of
how the results reflect on this inquiry are detailed in Appendices D and E.
To ensure commitment from the organization, I held informational meetings with
the OPHD Director, the Modernization Team, and the OPHD Executive Leadership
Team, which together are considered the organizational client for this analysis. The
agendas for these meetings included description of the research questions, methodology,
and resource requirements as well as discussion of intent of the research and ethical
considerations: my dual role as scholar practitioner, potential risks to the organization,
and the OPHD Science and Epidemiology Council and Pacifica ethics review processes.
At these meetings I obtained verbal consent from organizational leaders to conduct the
project, to use official communication channels for focus group recruitment, and to
conduct focus groups at the worksite on paid time for current employees who had their
supervisor’s approval to participate. I also clarified that control over the focus group data
and analysis would remain with me, and committed to facilitate change management
discussions related to integration and implementation of results following the end of the
study period as my availability would allow. Upon the advice of an Assistant Attorney
General within the OHA Department of Justice, I conducted the focus groups on personal
time to ensure that neither the identities of participants nor the focus group data would be
subject to disclosure under the federal Freedom of Information Act.
Prior to conducting the focus groups, I submitted informed consent documents, a
recruitment flyer, sampling criteria in the form of an eligibility survey, and my focus
group protocol to the OPHD Science and Epidemiology Council. This group determined
no need for full OPHD Institutional Review Board review of the project due to its
organizational development focus. I also obtained approval of the project and materials
from the Pacifica Graduate Institute Institutional Review Board.

Following ethics approval at Pacifica, I worked with OPHD communications to
send a recruitment email to all current employees. This email provided basic information
about the study, a link to the electronic eligibility survey, and researcher contact
information. The initial email generated 18 responses from eligible participants. All of
these respondents were female and in professional-level positions, and all but one were
union represented employees. To enhance the diversity of recruited participants, I sent a
follow-up to managers requesting assistance in recruiting managers, administrative staff,
and male- and other-identifying gender identities. The OHA Human Resources
Department was not able to release a list of recently retired and resigned employees due
to privacy protocols. To recruit for this focus group, I asked managers and represented
employees who had expressed interest in the project to forward a recruitment email to
former colleagues who might qualify.
As recommended by the OPHD Science and Epidemiology Council, I invited all
qualified survey respondents to attend one of six 30-minute information sessions or view
a recorded version of the session presentation. These sessions presented an overall
orientation to the project, described the informed consent process, discussed the types of
data that would be collected during focus groups, and answered questions about the
research process and how the data were to be analyzed and how results would be shared.
As recommended by the OPHD Science and Epidemiology Council, attendance at a live
group or viewing of a recorded informational presentation was required for all focus
group participants. I obtained signed informed consent forms from all participants prior
to the start of each focus group session. In my presentation of focus group findings
(Chapter 4) I was careful to avoid descriptors that could connect specific participants
with specific opinions.
My dual relationship as an insider researcher/scholar practitioner posed potential
ethical and methodological issues, including the challenges of overcoming
preunderstanding, navigating role duality, and guarding against potential impingement of
organizational politics upon my research (Coghlan, 2007). However, this work builds
upon a strong precedent for the insider position within the field of organizational
development; Hotes (2011) has recognized the scholar practitioner who creates change
from the inside as the predominant model of organization development practice. The
benefits of the insider researcher stance are described in the organizational development
literature, especially in the field of higher education (Brannick & Coghlan, 2007; Fisher,
Rooke, & Torbert, 2000; Trowler, 2011). Coghlan (2013) identified the major advantage
of organizational insider research as its ability to generate immediately useful results.
Scholar practitioners, he noted, act as change agents who integrate scholarship into a
workplace and generate “actionable knowledge” that may be immediately applied to
improve organizational systems (p. 121). This was the aim of my research. I also agreed
with James, Slater, and Bucknam (2012), who noted that “if you want to make a
difference where you work, then the fact that you are insider or native may work to your
advantage” (p. 49).
Organizational development researchers (Coghlan, 2007 & 2013; Greene, 2014;
Unluer, 2012) have also reflected upon issues that commonly arise related to the scholar
practitioner role. Throughout the process of this research, I addressed these issues by
employing Coghlan’s (2013) recommendations on how to successfully navigate the

challenges of insider organizational inquiry by engaging in “rigorous, reflective, and
relevant” practice (pp. 128-132) on three levels. First, I engaged in the first-person
practice of reflexivity, “a continuing mode of self-analysis and political awareness” (p.
124) in the form of self-inquiry. This involved collecting and analyzing extensive data
reflecting my transference to the material (described in Chapter 5) as well as adopting a
stance of interiority (intellectual self-awareness) to critically evaluate my insider role and
its affect upon my research and reflect upon my experience through journaling. In
addition, I assessed my own personal archetypal influences and my perceptions of
OPHD’s archetypal patterning; results are available in Appendices D and E.
Second, this research involved second-person collaboration and critical dialogue
via my dissertation committee and the focus groups. Many spontaneous discussions with
participants and other interested employees developed as they asked about the progress of
the research, and these proved to be very helpful opportunities for self-reflection. Due to
the scope and design of this inquiry, I was not able to completely fulfill the aims of
Coghlan’s third recommendation: conducting third-person inquiry by generalizing
findings and articulating broadly actionable knowledge within the field (p. 125). The
potential for this research to generate insight and awareness and create change within
OPHD is yet to be determined. However, this inquiry adds to existing organizational
research knowledge by providing a case study example with relevance to other
researchers undertaking archetypal organizational analysis, and perhaps with relevance to
other public health agencies engaged in modernization or other types of organizational
development processes. I discuss further implications in Chapter 6.

In addition to applying these established recommendations from organizational
development research, I addressed the insider research challenge by directly addressing
my dual role and participants’ right to privacy during recruitment and at the start of focus
groups. I kept the executive leadership team and other key stakeholders (OPHD external
relations, managers, modernization team) informed of my progress with regular updates.
I also informed participants about my planned process for reporting results and reminded
them of their right to discontinue participation at any time. Furthermore, I plan to
publicly share back the results of my research at a Grand Rounds presentation in
November 2018, and will make a special invitation to all employees who volunteered to
participate in focus groups.
Limitations and Delimitations of the Study
The results of this study are necessarily limited by my perspective as an
organizational insider. However, this perspective provided some distinct advantages; my
longevity with the organization and position in middle management gave me access to
organizational leadership and also mitigated the possibility of misuse of power over
organizational subordinates. I also excluded my supervisor and employees that I directly
supervise from participation in the focus groups. However, the research was not free of
all power imbalances because my position was organizationally subordinate to some
focus group participants (executive leaders) and superior to others (represented
employees). Because of this dynamic, my position within the organization may have
affected the quality of the data I collected as well as my interpretation and presentation of
results. Despite best intentions, it is also possible that I unconsciously overlooked or

softened negative, difficult, or potentially damaging information in order to reduce
negative consequences upon the agency, my position, or my professional image.
The OPHD’s position as a government agency may have further affected the data
I collected from participants. Although the content of focus groups is research material
and therefore subject to privacy protocols as stipulated by the Pacifica Institutional
Research Board, government officials are acutely aware that business communications
are publicly discoverable. I was clear with participants that upon the advice of the
Oregon Department of Justice I conducted the focus groups on my own time as a private
citizen to avoid discoverability in the event of Freedom of Information Act requests.
However, participants may have self-censored out of long habit.
As a mixed deductive and inductive process of discovery framed as a case study,
the results of this research potentially demonstrate the utility of conducting integral
inquiry into archetypal material active within a particular organization. However, due to
the likelihood of variation between the organizational culture of different organizations,
replication of this methodology would probably not elucidate the same results in a
different agency. Because of the time-delimited nature of this study and the predictable
tendency for archetypal manifestations within the organizational psyche to shift over time
as an organization matures, the same study conducted in the same organization at a
different time could yield different results. Therefore, this study should be viewed as a
snapshot in time rather than as an enduring organizational portrait, and should not be
construed as a reliable indicator of the archetypal patterns that might manifest in similar
organizations.
The selection of participants also limited the study’s results. Due to resource
limitations, participation in focus groups was restricted to a small sampling of
organizational leaders, managers, represented employees, and recently retired and
resigned employees. Participants were also a self-selected group, and thus did not
represent employees who did not volunteer to participate due to apathy or fear of personal
or professional consequences related to participation. Although I conducted extra
outreach in an effort to enhance the gender diversity of the groups and to include
participants representing a variety of job types and cultural backgrounds, key voices—
including many of those who may have activated or been activated by organizational
complexes—may be missing in this inquiry. Additionally, lack of official access to
former employees’ contact information significantly limited my ability to recruit for that
particular focus group. All of those who volunteered to participate had worked in the
Center for Prevention and Health Promotion, so the opinions of this group did not include
perspectives from the other two centers or the OPHD Director’s Office.
Organization of the Study
Results from document analysis and focus group discussions are reported in
Chapter 4. These results provide an initial response to the two research questions, and
reflect both the character of the organizational persona as identified through the analysis
of public documents and upon voices of the organizational consciousness as represented
by focus group participants. Chapter 5 describes a deepening inquiry informed by
transferential data. In this chapter I describe and categorize the emotional and somatic
experiences of researcher and participants, analyze strong responses that indicate possible
organizational complexes, reflect upon examples of metaphor and alchemical imagery

gleaned from the data, and analyze my dreams and journal entries and the images I
generated through my weekly mandala drawing ritual.
Chapter 6 further deepens the inquiry by interpreting the results of the research
using Hillman’s processes of “seeing through” (1975, pp. 140-141). Interiorizing
interprets results using a subjective and personal lens. This aspect of the interpretation of
results is strongly influenced by my own experiences, including dream images, somatic
experiences, and intuitive understandings. The process of psychologizing digs deeply
into the organizational data in an attempt to describe what may be happening under the
surface of the OPHD persona, interpreting the data by means of “appealing to an ultimate
hidden value…concealed in the depths…[the] ultimate hidden value…the deus
absconditus in the results” (p. 140). This process identifies the main archetypal players
on the stage of the organization’s polytheistic psyche by identifying projections and
complexes revealed through obvious emotional responses to difficult topics. In
examining more disguised and subtle responses that involve use of humor, the discussion
in Chapter 6 also seeks to identify shadow material that indicates itself through its
absence in the data rather than its presence. I also connect patterns in the data to
mythological stories indicated by the organization’s archetypal and metaphorical
material. Finally, I “return to ideas” (p. 141) by describing the potential application of
the results toward the ultimate goal of fostering integration of shadow material and
enhancing organizational wholeness. In keeping with the integral inquiry methodology,
Chapter 6 also describes my experience of conducting the project from a depth
perspective, focusing on insights I gained through exploration of somatic and intuitive
indicators of the tension between my professional persona and my emerging self. The
inquiry concludes with a brief discussion of the significance of the findings for the field
of depth psychology, opportunities for further research and methodological development,
and noteworthy cultural and historical implications.
True to the tenets of integral inquiry, I have synthesized the data and presented
them by means that attempt to acknowledge and respect various ways of knowing. I have
presented a variety of visual images, including a modified Archetype of Organization
figure, a waffle chart frequency map, word clouds, and mandala drawings. I have also
included tables that summarize complex results along with descriptive prose that provides
insight into nuances in the analysis and evokes the intuitive and somatic qualities of the
analytical process.
Chapter 4. Document Analysis and Focus Group Findings
In keeping with the tenets of the integral inquiry methodology, this project was
conducted in three phases designed to provide broad perspective upon the two research
questions: What archetypes are active in the organizational psyche of the Oregon Public
Health Division? and How might analysis of the archetypes active within OPHD’s
organizational psyche help to inform the agency’s development and modernization?
The first phase of analysis addressed the research questions by identifying the
frequency of archetypal themes within OPHD modernization documents, characterizing
the flavor of these archetypal manifestations, and developing an initial list of
recommendations and considerations for the agency. By means of deductive thematic
analysis using a coding matrix (Appendix B) derived from Mark and Pearson (2001),
Corlett and Pearson (2003), and Pearson (2003) I identified the balance between and
within the four quadrants—Results, People, Stabilizing, and Learning—that represent
“four great life forces [that] come together in two sets of polar opposites” (Corlett &
Pearson, 2003, p. 19) and the axes of dynamic tension between the archetypal energies in
the Archetype of Organization model. One axis of tension exists between the archetypes
that share a common tendency toward achievement of results through improvement,
radical change, and inspiration (Hero, Revolutionary, and Magician) and those that share
the tendency to nurture and develop people by their emphasis on relationships,
connection, and belonging both within and outside the organization (Everyperson, Jester,
and Lover). The other axis of tension juxtaposes the archetypal energies of stability and
structure (Caregiver, Creator, Ruler) with those of learning, change and growth via
innovation, exploration, and discovery (Innocent, Explorer, Sage).

Word clouds that I generated from the most frequently occurring concepts coded
to each archetype provided an evocative representation of how the archetypes manifested
within the public documents. My own reflections provide an initial interpretation of the
frequency data and word clouds and offer initial recommendations for how this data
might benefit the agency.
In the second phase of analysis, I presented the document analysis findings to
focus groups comprised of union represented employees, supervising managers, the
executive leadership team, and recently resigned or retired employees. Semantic analysis
of the focus group transcripts identified themes of discussion regarding the archetype
frequency data, archetype word clouds, and recommendations for the agency about how
the data might inform organizational development and the public health modernization
process.
The third phase of analysis added transferential data generated during the
document analysis and focus group process. These data include transcripts of my
nighttime dreams, research journal entries, and mandalas that I drew each week between
the approval of the dissertation proposal in October 2017 and the end of focus group
transcript analysis in April 2018. I have presented findings from the analysis of these
data in Chapter 5.
In this chapter, I directly answer the two research questions by presenting and
discussing findings from the first two datasets. In keeping with the hermeneutic process
that led to the findings, I present these results in the order that I uncovered them. I begin
analysis of the archetypes active in the OPHD organizational psyche by taking a birds-
eye view of the document analysis data, examining the overall distribution of archetype
frequency within the Archetype of Organization mandala. I then present initial
characterizations of each of the 12 archetypes as inspired by my preliminary analysis of
the word clouds. Next, I discuss document analysis findings regarding the dynamic
organizational tensions within the mandala via the People vs. Results and Learning vs.
Stabilizing axes. Finally, by means of the focus group data, I provide a more nuanced
discussion of the balance and quality of archetypal energies within each of the four
quadrants of the Archetype of Organization.
Archetypes Active Within the Organizational Psyche
The first stage of analysis identified the frequency of archetypal themes within
OPHD modernization documents. To guide the coding process, I developed a coding
matrix containing key words and phrases related to each of the 12 archetypes in Corlett
and Pearson’s (2003) Archetype of Organization model. The coding matrix was based
upon descriptions of these organizational archetypes in two source documents:
Understanding Archetypes in Your Organization: An Introduction to the OTCI Basic
Report (Pearson, 2003) and The Hero and the Outlaw (Mark and Pearson 2001). By
means of deductive thematic analysis guided by this coding matrix, I identified the
balance of organizational forces between and within the four quadrants of the Archetype
of Organization model. This process generated data in response to the first research
question: What archetypes are active in the organizational psyche of the Oregon Public
Health Division?
Analysis of balance between the four quadrants identified that archetypes within
Results (Hero, Magician, Revolutionary), which share a tendency toward achievement
through improvement, radical change, and inspiration, were represented more than twice
as frequently as archetypes within the People quadrant (Everyman, Lover, Jester) that
share the tendency to nurture and develop people by their emphasis on relationships,
connection, and belonging both within and outside to the organization. Archetypes with
Stabilizing influences (Ruler, Caregiver, Creator) that manifest energies of structure,
process, and maintenance of tradition were represented 1.4 times as frequently as those
representing the Learning quadrant (Sage, Explorer, Innocent) that support change and
growth via innovation, exploration, and discovery. A graphic representation of these
results, including the three archetypal influences comprising each quadrant, are provided
in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Frequency of Archetypal Themes Expressed in OPHD Modernization
Documents, by Quadrant
Figure 2 visually demonstrates the distribution of archetype frequencies within
each quadrant of the Archetype of Organization by means of a waffle chart; each cell
represents 1% of total frequency and each color represents a different archetype. The
white diamond inside the dark gridlines represents the area of grid squares that would be
filled in a hypothetical (and unlikely) balanced distribution with 25% of results in each
quadrant. This demarcation is provided as a means to easily identify the unique balance
of archetypal energies within the OPHD’s Archetype of Organization, and is not meant to
infer variation from an ideal state. This figure visually demonstrates how the archetype
frequencies found in the modernization documents skew toward the Results and
Stabilizing quadrants and away from the Learning and People quadrants.
Figure 2. Distribution of Archetype Frequency Between and Within Archetype of
Organization Quadrants
Further analysis of the frequency of archetypal themes (codes) within the four
quadrants of the Archetype of Organization (Corlett & Pearson, 2003) identified the
Hero, Ruler, and Sage as the overall most frequently occurring archetypal patterns
identified within the OPHD modernization documents. The Everyperson, Caregiver, and
Magician archetypes were expressed within the documents to a moderate degree, and the
archetypal influences of Lover, Explorer, Revolutionary, Innocent, and Creator appeared
in the documents to a far lesser degree. The influence of the Jester archetype within the
modernization documents was barely detectable. See Table 2 for frequency rankings of
the 12 archetypes in the model.
Table 2. Ranking of Archetypal Patterns within OPHD Identified Through Document
Analysis
Rank Archetype Key Qualities* Frequency** Quadrant
Accomplishment, achievement,
courage, efficiency, goals,
1 Hero 0.226 Results
implementation, improvement,
strength
Accountability, stewardship,
enforcement, fairness,
2 Ruler government, responsibility, 0.196 Stabilizing
authority, systems, process,
order, leadership, structure
Academia, education, wisdom,

3 Sage mastery, learning, analysis, 0.184 Learning
assessment, data, knowledge
Fairness, practicality, human

rights, dignity, reciprocity,
4 Everyperson respect, resilience, discipline, 0.100 People
social justice, diversity, equity,
access, inclusiveness
Assistance, care, generosity,

support, nurture, creation of
5 Caregiver 0.092 Stabilizing
safety, protection,
responsibility
Awareness, faith, history

telling, inspiration, intuition,
6 Magician 0.076 Results
transformation, modernization,
ritual, transcendence
Adaptability, adventure,
authenticity, flexibility,
7 Explorer 0.025*** Learning
opportunity, freedom,
exploration, entrepreneurialism
Appreciation, connection,
communication, consensus,
8 Lover 0.025*** People
facilitation, mutuality, passion,
teamwork, trust
Commitment, non-
conformism, pessimism,
9 Revolutionary honesty, radical change, 0.024 Results
equalization of power, risk
taking
Curiosity, dependence,
honesty, hope, idealism,
10 Innocent 0.023 Learning
innocence, loyalty, safety,
trust, vulnerability
Creativity, expressiveness,
11 Creator 0.022 Stabilizing
imagination, innovation, skill,
vision, vocation
Enjoyment, humor, light-

heartedness, flexibility, play,
12 Jester 0.009 People
satire, incisive criticism, ability
to speak truth to power
* Results in this column include the most heavily represented concepts associated with
each archetype. See the archetype coding matrix (Appendix B) for a complete list.
** Due to rounding errors, frequencies do not add up to one.
*** Frequency analysis identified the Lover and Explorer archetypes as expressing
equally; they are presented here in alphabetical order.
Overall archetype expression and balance. Within the Results quadrant of the
Archetype of Organization (Corlett & Pearson, 2003), the Hero (22.6%) emerged as the
most frequently occurring archetypal influence, followed by the Magician (7.6%) and the
Revolutionary (2.4%). While preparing the archetype frequency data for presentation in
the focus groups, I interpreted this finding as an accurate reflection of OPHD’s
organizational approach to change through achievement of goals and increased
efficiency. I noted that this tendency might take place to the exclusion of more deeply
meaningful transformational change (Magician archetype) or radical change processes
involving risk and overthrow of current systems and hierarchies (Revolutionary
archetype). OPHD’s role as a bureaucratic government agency corroborates this finding;
stability is a key aspect of bureaucracy, and public health has also been strongly
influenced by the Plan/Do/Study/Act model and other goal-oriented change management

and quality improvement mechanisms commonly employed in health care and other
aspects of the private sector. I also noted that the relative dominance of the Hero
archetype and weakness of the Magician and Revolutionary within the modernization
documents may indicate a limitation of the organization’s ability to undertake deep and
lasting change via its modernization process.
Within the quadrant of Stabilizing forces, the Ruler archetype was most
frequently represented within the modernization documents (19.6%), followed by the
Caregiver (9.2%) and Creator (2.2%). I interpreted the strong presence of the Ruler
within the documents as reflecting OPHD’s role within the executive branch of
government and its position as a division of the Oregon Health Authority, an agency that
invokes its Ruler-oriented authority within its very title. However, I also noted that the
strong emphasis upon authority within the modernization documents, particularly when
relatively unchecked by the influences of Caregiver and Creator, indicates the potential
for OPHD to be perceived as an organization with a tendency to be overbearing and lack
compassion and imagination.
The Learning quadrant revealed a similar pattern, with the Sage archetype’s
expression (18.4%) appearing much more frequently when compared to the Explorer
(2.5%) and Innocent (2.3%). I interpreted the strong showing of the Sage archetype
within this quadrant as an accurate representation of OPHD’s highly data-driven
organizational culture, which includes a large cadre of Master’s- and Doctoral-level
research analysts and epidemiologists among the agency’s staff, managers, and executive
leaders. However, I also noted that the relative dearth of language expressing the
Explorer archetype within documents about public health system transformation—which

represent the agency’s plan of action for groundbreaking change—may indicate the
potential for OPHD to be perceived as complacent and overly traditional. My analysis of
the word cloud indicated a possible tendency for the agency to appear more focused on
knowing and professing than upon learning and discovering. This implied to me the
possibility of stakeholders perceiving the agency as an ivory tower disconnected from the
community and the people it serves.
I interpreted the relative absence of Innocent archetype influences within the
documents as a reflection of the relative strength of the Ruler archetype. As an agency
with legislative authority for rulemaking and police powers related to public health
emergencies, it would be out of character for OPHD to imply a subordinate role within its
public documents. However, I also recognized that key aspects of Innocent
organizations—especially their optimistic, centralized, and hierarchical nature—do
accurately represent facets of my personal experience of OPHD’s organizational
character.
Archetypal balance within the least represented quadrant of influence—the People
aspect of OPHD’s organizational culture—also reflected the pattern of one most
frequently expressed and two much less frequently expressed archetypes. Here,
Everyperson (10.0%) was the most commonly expressed archetype, with Lover (2.5%)
appearing only infrequently and Jester (0.9%) appearing least the frequently of all the 12
archetypes within the Archetype of Organization model. I interpreted this pattern as
reflective of the influence of union workers within OPHD (Everyperson), and agency
employees’ strong shared value for equity, respect for diversity, social justice, and
universal access to healthful environments and health care. The relative lack of
expression of the Lover archetype corroborated my own perception of the agency
leadership structure; I have personally noted that a tendency for unilateral, top-down
decision making and perceived lack of communication between leaders and rank-and-file
workers has depleted trust and emotional honesty between layers of the organizational
hierarchy. The near-complete absence of the Jester’s archetypal influence within the
modernization documents was not surprising to me, given the agency’s position within
government and sense of organizational heaviness that I have personally felt while
working at OPHD. This appeared to reflect a sense of organizational solemnity in
response to the high burden of morbidity and mortality and the marked inequities that
OPHD is responsible for addressing. However, lack of Jester influence also indicated to
me a lack of spontaneity within the agency, as well as potential lack of safety among
rank-and-file employees that limits their ability to speak truth to those in positions of
power within OPHD’s strong and historically rigid organizational hierarchy.
Archetype word cloud analysis. Analysis of word clouds generated from the
word cruncher frequency tool in ATLAS.ti (Appendix C) provided a means to further
explore the flavor of expression within the 12 Archetype of Organization categories that I
analyzed within the modernization documents. Prior to conducting the focus groups, I
reviewed and reflected upon the 12 archetype word clouds and the four word clouds I
generated from coded data representing the shadow aspects of the most frequently
expressed archetype within each of the quadrants of influence (Hero, Ruler, Sage, and
Everyperson). Results of this process, which I presented for discussion during the focus
groups, are described below.

The Hero represented by OPHD is about getting things done. Correspondingly,
the word cloud concepts represent a lot of yang energy. Key words and concepts include
implement, develop, assess, and activities; forward momentum (implement, plan, and
improve); and the means to make things happen (policy, activities, systems, strategy,
capability, and funding). However, these last words also evoke the Ruler archetype.
Within the Hero’s shadow we see the aspects of OPHD that are likely to be held in
shadow: disparities and inequities, issues of care, and relationships with local public
health authorities.
Interestingly, although the word “modernize” is central to the Magician archetype
word cloud, the rest of the dominant content there appears to belong to the Ruler
archetype (systems, policy, authority, and programming) and the Sage (assessment,
training, expertise, and planning). The concepts in this word cloud imply to me that
OPHD is expecting to modernize by means of structure and accomplishment of goals
rather than by means of a fundamental transformation. I was left wondering, where is the
magic in modernization?
Risk is strongly represented in the Revolutionary word cloud. With only 2% of
the data content coded to the Revolutionary, this is an archetype that appears to be in the
organizational shadow. The Destroyer, a closely aligned archetypal field and the
corollary to the Revolutionary in Pearson’s individual archetypal model (Pearson, 2003,
p. 45), is very aligned with risk. Risk in itself, however, is anathema to public health
practice; one of OPHD’s major goals is to reduce Oregonians’ risk for morbidity and
mortality. The shadowy nature of risk within the OPHD archetypal field indicated to me
that programs may not be set up to communicate effectively with people and groups in
the community for whom the Revolutionary or Destroyer is a dominant archetype. If
true, this would indicate that the agency is inherently misaligned with some of the people
it most needs to effectively reach and serve.
According to the word frequency analysis of the modernization documents, the
Ruler appears as the second most commonly manifesting archetype in the OPHD
organizational psyche. This is not surprising, given the agency’s status as a government
organization. There was a huge amount of data associated with this archetype, and the
Ruler word cloud reflected only the concepts that occurred more than 100 times across
the documents. The concepts that manifest here—system, authority, policy, governing,
framework, and strategy—represent classic Ruler attributes. Benevolent Ruler
characteristics are evident in the high frequency of the words provide, serve, improve,
protect, ensure, equity, accountability, delivery, and support. However, I also noted
several concepts that reflect an action-oriented aspect more typical of the Archetype of
Organization’s Results quadrant in the Ruler word cloud as well: implement, develop,
improve, and plan. OPHD’s Ruler archetype seems to be expressed in the documents as
a heroic ruler.
An inkling of the Ruler’s shadow—disparity—appears in the lower right corner of
the word cloud. Within the Ruler Shadow word cloud, important themes include
disparity, inequity, community, race, mortality, suicide, burden of disease, and the need
to communicate effectively.
The Caregiver archetype word cloud is strikingly similar to the Ruler shadow
word cloud. The concepts of disparities, inequities, communication, environmental
issues, race, death, binge drinking, and suicide appear in both. I noticed that the
Caregiver word cloud appeared in the way that I would expect the Caregiver shadow to
manifest in the documents. The archetypal Caregiver at OPHD seems highly aware of
and focused upon correcting major community level issues. Yet, I interpreted this word
cloud as indicating that while the agency is intending to act as a positive Caregiver, it is
challenged in its ability to achieve this because of insurmountable health disparities and
inequities. This shadow material may be coming through strongly in the Caregiver
because the organization is in a corrective phase of consciously owning this aspect of its
shadow. This is a promising indication in the short term, but in the long term the
manifestation of the Caregiver archetype in OPHD expression of a nurturing, caring
quality would help the agency to succeed in addressing disparities.
The Creator manifests in this word cloud in terms of efficiency, systems,
implementation and strategy. Some classic Creator archetype words that describe the
modernization process are also present: create, innovate, skills, and vision. However, as
with the Ruler, many Hero concepts also manifest here (implement, develop, strategize,
effective, achieve), so the actual Creator appears somewhat overshadowed. Concepts
coded to the Creator archetype represented only 2% of the data set, so this archetype did
not manifest strongly in the document frequency analysis and may be interpreted as an
archetype in the organizational shadow.
In the Sage word cloud we see, not surprisingly, the reflection of the importance
of local and state-level data to OPHD. Important concepts include assessment; planning;
providing and reporting data to the community; and use of data to inform, implement
data-driven solutions, and make improvements in the public’s health. The practice of
public health is very focused on data, best practices, and evaluation, and this aspect of the
agency comes through strongly here. Strikingly, within this most frequently occurring
archetype in OPHD’s Learning quadrant, the word learning does not appear in the word
cloud because it appeared only 39 times in the documents. In comparison, the concept of
data appeared 664 times. This implied to me that OPHD is much more overtly focused
on amassing, implementing, and professing knowledge than it is upon learning. I
interpreted this finding as something leadership would do well to reflect upon, since
modernization requires the agency to learn new information and develop new skills.
The concepts of communication and communities manifested strongly in the
OPHD Sage shadow word cloud. Adaptation, the ability to learn (not in the main
archetype, but in the shadow), and nimbleness also appear. In my interpretation, these
concepts indicate values and attributes that the agency should cultivate carefully as it
modernizes to avoid becoming an ivory tower because it cannot connect with the outside
world, or a dinosaur because it cannot adapt quickly enough to stay current and relevant.
Some concepts central to the Explorer archetype appear in this archetype’s word
cloud: new, emerging, strategy, develop, opportunities, guide, innovate, and flexible.
However, some opposing shadow concepts are also here: government, system, program,
and roadmap. Perhaps this reflects the strong stabilizing forces that came through in the
analysis. I inferred from this that while OPHD intends to innovate and explore new
territory and systems through modernization, the agency is perhaps so stable that it is
unable to transform and adopt a truly new way of being.
Although the Innocent comprises only 2% of the data set, its basic attributes—
sharing, service, safety, and responsiveness—come through quite clearly in the word
cloud. However, I wondered what it meant that the word local comes up so strongly.
Does this imply that OPHA sees local jurisdictions (consciously or unconsciously) as
Innocents to be taken care of by the Hero/Ruler? This question deserves consideration.
The dominance of the concept of partnership within the Everyperson word cloud
reflects to me the agency’s emphasis upon equalizing power relationships between the
state and local jurisdictions by means of modernization. The Everyperson concepts of
inclusion, service, and access also appear in the frequency word cloud. This suggested to
me that OPHD should consider the importance of plain language in communication,
especially as it relates to the communication issues raised in the Sage analysis. Given
that OPHD’s people orientation is to the common person, and that the Everyperson
archetype has a blue collar dynamic, the agency needs to continue to keep in mind the
needs and concerns of its rural and less formally educated constituents. It speaks well for
OPHD that Everyperson came through strongly in the analysis, given that transformation
of government processes will better serve the entire state. The word cloud for the shadow
of Everyperson appeared to me as very similar to the Ruler shadow and the Caregiver;
disparities and elimination of inequities are central.
Within the Lover word cloud, we see the concept of sharing front and center,
along with relationships with communities and partners and the means of developing
them through communication, services, and support. However, this finding made me
wonder about the concept of sharing, because it does not necessarily imply equity; one
can share without sharing evenly or fairly. I considered this to be an important
consideration, especially in light of the shadowy Caregiver discussed earlier.
The manifestation of the Jester within its word cloud was puzzling to me; very
little content (besides maybe “innovate”?) seemed to reflect core Jester attributes. The
Jester is the least manifested archetype of the 12 within the OPHD Archetype of
Organization, and only accounted for 1% of the archetypal coding in the data set. Does
this imply that the Jester is entirely in shadow within OPHD’s organizational psyche,
since the Jester’s shadow did not even manifest in a coherent way? The ability to speak
truth to power is a crucial aspect of the Jester archetype. Given this finding, I planned to
discuss in the focus groups how encouraging the Jester within OPHD might provide a
new means of approaching equity issues and might engage in more fruitful (but perhaps
challenging) dialogue within the organization and with partners.
Focus group discussion findings. The four focus group discussions were
designed to fact check and enrich my archetypal frequency findings and interpretation
from document analysis regarding the first research question: What archetypes are active
within the organizational psyche of OPHD? These discussions engaged a variety of
perspectives within OPHD, including union-represented employees, management service
employees, recently retired and resigned employees, and members of the OPHD
Executive Leadership Team. Focus group findings generally corroborated and expanded
upon the document analysis findings. Key themes from the sessions are described in
Table 3, and more detailed analysis of the discussions follows.

Table 3. Major Themes of Focus Group Discussions of the 12 Archetypes in the
Archetype of Organization
Frequency
Quadrant Archetype Rank Discussion Themes
 Hero as achiever (worker bee,

Warrior)
 Hero as an unconsciously
colonizing savior
Hero 1  OPHD Hero as risk averse,
Revolutionary is a possible
antidote
 Hero is challenged by disparity
and inequity
 Magician represents OPHD’s gift

for systems thinking
 Disconnect between language of
transformation and reality of
Results Magician 6 modernization
 Where is the magic in
modernization? It doesn’t feel
truly transformative and many
are unclear on what it is
 Lack of Revolutionary indicates

risk aversion
 OPHD has acted as a
Revolutionary (examples)
Revolutionary 9  It is challenging to be a
Revolutionary in OPHD
 OPHD needs to cultivate this
archetype and become less risk
averse
Frequency
Quadrant Archetype Discussion Themes
Rank
 Ruler is an appropriate archetype

for OPHD given its mission and
powers
 Community and disparities are
Ruler 2 the Ruler’s shadow
 OPHD is deluded about its true
level of power
 Image of the Queen of Hearts:
“Off with their heads!”
 Caregiver is represented in the

nursing profession, which is
declining in public health
 Caregiver is not represented in
OPHD leadership
Stabilizing Caregiver 5
 Caregiver word cloud is very
similar to the Ruler shadow
world cloud – does this reflect
the nature of state/local
relationships?
 Creator manifests in OPHD via

efficiency and systems
 Limited Creator expression
represents limited understanding
of creative capacity within the
Creator 11
agency
 Creator archetype was expressed
early in the modernization
process
Frequency
Quadrant Archetype Discussion Themes
Rank
 “Data is truth” is the OPHD

credo
 Data-driven truth can be relative
Sage 3 depending on the interpretation
 “We do knowing, not learning”
 Communication/listening is
Sage’s shadow
 OPHD’s Explorer is careful and

deliberate
 Bureaucracy creates challenges
for expression of the Explorer in
Explorer 8 OPHD
Learning  Other states saw OPHD as an
Explorer early in the
modernization process; how does
the agency get back there?
 Innocent archetype implies

avoidance of difficult decisions
 Power imbalance between
Innocent and Ruler implies
Innocent 10 danger of paternalism and
colonialism
 Ruler/Innocent relationship
echoes power imbalance in
state/local relationships
Frequency
Quadrant Archetype Rank Discussion Themes
 Strong Everyperson ethic

regarding equity and social
justice fits with the profession of
public health
 OPHD’s responsibility for
Everyperson 4
everyone’s health requires tough
decisions about distribution of
resources
 Employees draw inspiration from
Everyperson ideals
 Lover is not a strongly

People manifested archetype in OPHD
Lover 7  Expressing Lover more strongly
could improve trust and
relationships between employees,
external partners, and the public
 Jester role is challenging to

manifest within bureaucracy
 Weakly expressed Jester implies
difficulty in speaking honest or
difficult truths to those in power
and their willingness/ability to
hear
 OPHD should enhance its
Jester 12
People expression of the Jester
 OPHD has acted as Jester
regarding public health issues
(e.g. tobacco prevention)
 I (the researcher) am playing a
Jester role in OPHD through this
research and have a
responsibility to speak my truth
Discussion of the findings from document analysis reflecting overall archetype
balance generally agreed with the document analysis finding of a strong Hero-Ruler-Sage
archetype expression within OPHD’s Archetype of Organization. Participants described
these findings as expected and unsurprising given OPHD’s mission and role as a
government agency. A manager noted that the even distribution of the four most strongly
represented archetypes among the four quadrants, with one notably stronger archetype
within each quadrant, may imply the partially optimistic finding that “we’re not
completely out of whack in any direction.” Another participant commented that given
OPHD’s unique organizational flavor it would be unrealistic to expect the agency to
equally integrate all of the 12 archetypes. However, a third participant expressed
disappointment that the Jester and Explorer were not more represented in the mix, and
another would have expected more Explorer and Revolutionary influences to manifest in
documents that describe a major system modernization effort.
Focus group participants took to the concepts of archetype and organizational
psyche quickly and offered some inventive and insightful comments. In the Executive
Leadership Team discussion, flavors of the most frequently manifesting archetypes—
Hero, Ruler, and Sage—drew a comparison to the orientations and roles of the three
Centers within OPHD:
The Ruler is compliance and [the Center for Health] Protection does a lot of
compliance work…the Hero is a lot of [the Center for Public Health] Practice, and
the Sage is a lot of [the Center for] Prevention and Promotion.
Amusingly, a member of this group also drew a comparison between the four most
prevalent archetypes in the analysis—Hero, Ruler, Sage, and Everyperson—and the
archetypal flavors of the four houses at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
described in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Rowling, 1989).

Archetype balance: The Results/People axis. Focus group discussion of the
Results quadrant (Hero, Magician, Revolutionary) noted that the dominance of the Hero
archetype in the documents reflected the reality that “we are the executive branch [of
government], so we’re here to execute and implement.” One participant put it more
bluntly: “we’re here to get results.” Participants identified strong archetypal expression
in the Results quadrant as necessary to support the agency’s mission of modernization, its
leadership role, and its ability to live up to public expectations regarding efficiency and
stewardship of public resources. However, the manager focus group also discussed the
agency’s focus on results as a potential liability, especially if this focus were to come at
the expense of employees and external partners, who participants identified as the major
beneficiaries of a strong People quadrant. One manager offered a dramatic visual image
to describe this, noting that “an organization that is focused on results and not on people
is one that is consuming the people and spitting out the results.” A former employee
offered a poignant echo of this metaphor to describe the balance within the Results
(Hero/Magician/Revolutionary) quadrant. This participant noted that “the Magician and
Revolutionary are really important concepts that have basically been swallowed up by
one of the archetypes [Hero]…it shows here tremendously.”
Discussions of the findings from the People quadrant (Everyperson, Lover, Jester)
also agreed with the document analysis findings. After briefly reviewing the findings, a
manager emphatically stated, “We are not a people organization.” A represented
employee noted that the document analysis results accurately reflects OPHD’s deficiency
in this area, which appeared ironic given the agency’s charge to serve the population of
Oregon. Other groups discussed the likelihood that agencies like the Oregon Department
of Human Services and local public health authorities would show a stronger People
quadrant orientation in a similar analysis. They also discussed the public perception
challenges that would inevitably arise for a state agency were it to focus strongly on the
People quadrant value of employee wellness to the detriment of results.
While discussing the equilibrium of archetypal expression along the Results-
People axis in the Archetype of Organization model, all four focus groups agreed with
the finding that the Jester was the least well represented. Discussion of this finding was
quite extensive. Supporting comments included the simple statement “We’re not fun!” as
well as a description of the lack of Jester influence in the agency as a dynamic that is
“sucking out the life force” of employees. Opinions shared in more measured discussions
related to the Jester included an explanation that the rigidity inherent in the agency’s
Ruler-heavy persona is contrary to having fun at work. An elaboration about public
perceptions included a story about a public complaint filed with the State Motor Pool
about two state employees who were observed to be laughing while driving a state
vehicle. While this story is perhaps apocryphal, participants described it as an enduring
and poignant facet of OPHD’s organizational mythology that illustrates the challenge of
supporting expression of the Jester archetype within a government system. Discussion of
the Jester also focused on the inherent challenge of speaking difficult or challenging
truths to those in positions of power within a rigidly hierarchical organization such as
OPHD. One participant avowed her personal commitment to the practice, and another
offered the examples of the Current Disease Summary and its former editor—a quirky,
brilliant, and beloved epidemiologist who made the publication a real pleasure to read
before his untimely death—as an example of how the Jester can manifest in a refreshing
yet appropriate way within bureaucracy. Managers also noted that it is difficult to hire
and retain employees at OPHD who have a strong allegiance to the Jester archetype.
Archetype balance: The Stabilizing/Learning axis. Discussion of the Stabilizing
quadrant results (Ruler, Caregiver, Creator) centered on the concepts of stability and
authority. As with results and accountability, focus group participants identified stability
as an expected aspect of a government agency, given its importance in assuring
continuity of service and function within an ever-changing political environment. A
member of the management group noted that while risk taking is admired in many
aspects of the public sector, it is generally viewed as irresponsible in government.
Participants also noted the finding of stronger Stabilizing influences and weaker Learning
influences within OPHD as a reflecting the organization’s tendency to look inward rather
than outward for information.
Learning quadrant (Sage, Innocent, Explorer) result discussion in the focus groups
centered on the predominance of the Sage archetype within this facet of the
organizational psyche. A represented employee noted that “the Sage overwhelmingly
overpowers the Explorer” and conjectured that if OPHD had more of a research focus the
Explorer archetype might be more fully expressed. Members of the Executive
Leadership Team commented that the findings of a work style inventory conducted
among the OPHD management team a few years ago corroborated the predominance of
the Sage influence; at that time manager working styles clustered in the analytical
category.
Results archetypes: Hero, Magician, and Revolutionary. Semantic analysis
using the network feature in ATLAS.ti identified four major themes of discussion among
focus groups regarding the Hero as it manifested in the analysis of OPHD public
documents. These included Hero as savior, Hero as achiever, the risk averse Hero, and
Hero as challenged and flummoxed by disparity and inequity.
Discussion of the Hero as achiever identified that the OPHD Hero is focused on
“striding ahead and getting results.” Participants recognized this facet of the Hero as
necessary due to public expectations. Given the agency’s focus on external progress
through achieving goals and objectives, one manager described this Hero’s relentless
work as “never enough…you’ve got to keep doing.” This manager noted that OPHD’s
heroic focus on doing and implementing implied a worker bee image that she described
as uninspiring, “not [the kind of] person ahead that makes me want to run and follow.”
This same manager offered images of the Warrior/Hero, which she described as
personally appealing due to her interest in social justice and health equity. Describing the
ongoing challenge of achieving health equity, she described OPHD’s role as “we’re not
the Hero, but we’re in the front lines.” She also noted conflictual Warrior influences in
the dynamics of the relationship between the Council of Local Health Officials and
OPHD leadership. Other participants noted that the OPHD Hero’s shadow contains
aspects of the Caregiver and Lover archetypes: communities, people, and the challenge of
equalizing disparities. This characterization of the Hero archetype seemed to me to have
much in common with an Everyman Hero.
All four focus groups discussed the risk-averse nature of OPHD’s archetypal Hero
aspect as it manifested in the documents. Although participants understood this
characteristic to be incongruous with the Hero archetype, this finding from the document
analysis jibed with their personal experience. One manager noted that risk taking runs
contrary to the realities of her everyday work, which she described as generally focused
on minimizing public health risks while also avoiding risk to the agency. Another
participant brought up the HIV section’s syringe exchange program as a prime example
of OPHD’s focus on risk reduction. One represented employee noted that the Hero as
manifested in the OPHD documents seems to suffer from dualistic thinking: it can either
save the world or address disparities, but cannot accomplish both simultaneously.
Participants in this group and members of the Executive Leadership Team offered the
Revolutionary as an antidote, indicating that the organization would benefit from more
Revolutionary influence in the modernization process. One executive team member
noted:
We’re struggling in a very sincere way to understand how to define health equity
and understand race and privilege and implicit bias…that’s the…Revolutionary…
I think we really struggle as a relatively pale, overeducated population to figure
out how we move that forward in a way that feels healthy and fair…that small
[Revolutionary] piece is a growing conversation for us and a key piece of
modernization.
Although a represented employee expressed the opinion that OPHD needs more
Revolutionary than Hero influence to be successful in the modernization process, an
executive suggested that a more equal balance of these two archetypes would be most
beneficial for the agency. However, one manager noted that the role of the Hero in
modernization was not clear to her due to lack of adequate articulation of the concept of
modernization.
The manager and represented employee focus groups noted the strong presence of
disparities in the Hero Shadow word cloud, which they described as a “nemesis” and a
“blind spot.” A manager proposed that while the strong archetypal influences of Hero
and Ruler within OPHD have probably contributed to the agency’s failure to make
significant impact upon health disparities in Oregon, the way these concepts come
through in the Hero Shadow and Ruler Shadow word clouds demonstrates the agency’s
high level of awareness of the need for improvement and focus in this area through
modernization.
Discussions regarding the OPHD archetypal Hero as savior had a rather critical
flavor. Although participants recognized that this aspect of OPHD’s organizational
psyche is driven by strongly benevolent intention to “make it all better,” questions
emerged about who exactly the OPHD archetypal Hero is trying to save—the county
public health system, or Oregonians—and whether this archetype’s “white male
masculine energy” might actually indicate that the consciously benevolent Hero is an
unconscious colonizer intent on saving others in his own image and on his own terms.
Participants used a variety of metaphorical language to characterize the OPHD Hero as a
Warrior/Hero, including references to ThunderCats™, Captain America™, and G.I.
Joe™; “rescue mice” (well-meaning employees who want to do good and believe that
others should naturally agree with their idea of how to achieve this); and Don Quixote
(Cervantes Saavedra, 1986). However, one manager also invoked a David and Goliath
metaphor in describing how OPHD has stood up to the influence of the financially and
politically powerful tobacco industry. She noted that this conflict resulted in major
contributions to legislative tobacco control victories, including the Oregon Indoor Clean
Air Act.
Focus group participants noted the Magician as a source of potential inspiration
for out-of-the-box thinking. This was characterized within the context of OPHD as going
beyond mere achievement of federal grant requirements to fulfillment of a larger purpose.
One manager commented that Magician-inspired ability to see opportunities for
innovative, system-level change has made Oregon stand apart from other state public
health agencies. She described systems thinkers as those with “special eyeglasses to see
the interdependence” within the complex landscape of public health. She went on to say
that OPHD is committed to tapping into community wisdom to address disparities and
inequities. She also noted the agency’s need for inspired leadership, asking “Where is the
Magician that can help us?” In response, participants agreed that the Magician did not
manifest as strongly as they might expect within an agency in the midst of system
transformation.
A manager summed up the relative absence of Magician qualities in the
modernization process by asking, “Where’s the magic? That’s a really good question.”
Other members of the management focus group noted a disconnect between the Magician
archetype-related words used to describe modernization in the documents and the
realities of public health modernization. One participant elaborated, “In theory I see how
they’re connected…[but] I’m still not sure what it [modernization] means…I still feel
really confused about what really is modernization and what are the expectations.” The
same participant went on to say, “There’s a big disconnect between…what we actually do
when it comes to change and innovation and the words…that this is supposedly what
modernization is about.” Another participant commented that Magician properties like
innovation and transformation get lip service within the agency but that these stated
intentions often do not manifest into tangible action. She described her perception of
modernization as a bargaining process between state and local public health systems that
resulted in addition of money and services that did little more than sustain the status quo.
The least represented archetype in the Results quadrant—the Revolutionary—
garnered a disproportionate amount of focus group discussion. A manager noted that
relative lack of Revolutionary and Explorer tendencies in the public documents
represents a public sector stereotype of risk aversion. However, participants in three of
the four groups also noted that OPHD does manifest Revolutionary qualities despite their
rarity in the modernization documents. A member of the executive team said, “We’re
also [manifesting] the Revolutionary archetype, tearing the house down” through the
modernization process. A represented employee noted the existence of innovative “side
hustles” supported by federal grants which, as experiments “flying under the radar,” are
not officially reported. A manager noted how OPHD tempers Revolutionary influence
with discipline and credibility to sustain innovations. Another member of this group
described the challenge of balancing Revolutionary influences with the public’s Heroic
achievement expectations of a government agency by saying, “Sometimes it’s hard to
implement if you’re trying to shake things up.”
The manager focus group jokingly discussed the challenge of being an OPHD
employee with Revolutionary tendencies, especially given the need to conform to long
timelines for change and sustain the high level of discipline required to see innovations
through. A represented employee offered the opinion that pressure to remain

continuously funded by federal grants reduces the agency’s ability to truly embrace
Revolutionary values. Another employee noted that age demographics within her section
of OPHD have exerted a strong influence on its expression of the Revolutionary
archetype, with younger employees tending to manifest this tendency more strongly. One
manager made a personal reflection on her experience as a Revolutionary in a big
bureaucracy: “I used to be one.…Revolutionaries have a couple of years to come in and
change things before they’re torn down or they burn out.” A less sanguine represented
employee said, “In a rigid structure there’s really no room for them, and if they come
their soul is sucked out and they leave.”
While the represented employee group reiterated the challenge of nurturing and
retaining risk-seeking employees within a risk-averse environment, the managers
reflected upon what it would take to achieve this. One participant noted that leaders
should model risk taking to encourage a supportive culture and another urged division
leadership to consider how OPHD protects, encourages, and facilitates risk takers. A
third participant noted the need to foster a culture of risk taking while remaining mindful
of the organizational image.
All four groups agreed about the need to foster a less risk-averse culture within
OPHD. A former employee described how the agency’s fear of risk has jeopardized the
quality of its relationships with partner organizations and the public. An executive echoed
this opinion and pointed out the agency’s crucial need of “getting over fear of change and
relationship” to create space for revolution and magic. A represented employee offered a
suggestion for achieving this by “pushing up” innovative ideas to the legislature to
counteract the limitations of white male dominant culture.

Stabilizing archetypes: Ruler, Caregiver, and Creator. The executive team only
made one comment upon the Ruler archetype results, apart from agreeing that the
predominance of the Ruler in the stabilizing quadrant made sense within the context of
OPHD. A participant in this group said that in terms of providing leadership for the
public health system there was “not another entity that was creating these foundational
[modernization] documents—it was really us.” The lack of discussion of the Ruler role
by this group—which represents the core of the organizational ego—could be interpreted
to indicate a potential lack of self-reflection within this group regarding their role within
the organizational power structure. However, it could also simply mean that they agreed
with the analysis. Both interpretations could also be true.
In contrast to this brief treatment, the focus groups comprising represented
employees, former employees, and managers discussed the Ruler archetype extensively.
A former employee noted that the strong reflection of the Ruler archetype within the
public documents reflects OPHD’s role in rulemaking and its police powers and
authorities related to protecting the public’s health, saying “It’s not the Wild West, you
have to have rules and authorities.” Another member of this group described how the
influence of the archetypal Ruler provides structure for caregivers and healers to function
within the agency, and how rules and legal authorities enable bureaucracy to carry out
this important role. The image of a red rock canyon also surfaced in this group, which
was interpreted to represent the message “We’re OPHD, we’re in it for the long game, all
is well.” Similarly, the managers’ group discussed how the strong Ruler in OPHD’s
persona reflects the agency’s roles regarding authority, stewardship, and accountability.
One of the departed employees also said, “This is how the organization wants to be seen
by other organizations: in that there is no fun, they are the ruler, and this is a results-
driven organization.”
While the represented and former employees discussed the appropriateness of a
strong Ruler influence within OPHD given its mission (“We’re here to rule over people
and be the authority!”), some represented employees were more critical of this dynamic.
One participant in this group noted, “When I first came into public health I thought
‘Authority’ was the weirdest name for an organization.”
All four groups noted the strong presence of the concepts of community and
disparities within the Ruler Shadow word cloud, as well as the marked similarity between
the Caregiver and Ruler Shadow word clouds. Conversation acknowledged that the
strong presence of community and disparities in the shadow of the most frequently
manifesting archetype in this quadrant (Ruler) implied that these issues were the
“nemesis” or “kryptonite” that the agency must face and overcome. One manager noted
that OPHD as a benevolent ruler must engage in the “struggle to honor the community
wisdom” and the challenge of “reconciling that a lot of folks out there don’t have what
we have, all the data and the resources and the knowledge and the access and the power.”
She described this as a benevolent sort of paternalism. However, the former employee
group’s discussion took a different turn, focusing on OPHD’s blindness to its own lack of
power:
It’s essentially organizationally a middle manager between CDC and state
government and the health of the population. But it claims to be in control of its
own destiny and creating its own vision and activities, with or without
funding…the reality is that you do what you’re funded to do…we’re good at that,
but we have delusions of more.
This participant also noted that other divisions of OHA have little respect for OPHD and
consider the agency unimportant—“not just budget dust, but dust”—and that when
OPHD shows initiative in addressing its shadow issues, “we’re constrained [by OHA
leadership or the legislature] and told to stay in our lane.” Another member of this group
concurred, adding that OPHD has deluded itself by characterizing the state public health
system over which it presides as an actual system, which is “in reality very messy and
complicated and not functional.” This participant also jokingly referred to her post-
traumatic stress caused by experiencing the high level of tension between local public
health authorities and OPHD in the participant’s former role in the agency.
Discussions in other focus groups were not as overtly critical of OPHD’s
expression of the archetypal Ruler. However, content shared within every focus group
either directly referred to or indirectly inferred the archetypal image of an overblown and
ineffectual ruler: the character of the Queen of Hearts from Alice’s Adventures in
Wonderland (Carroll, 2014). This image overtly appeared in one discussion when a
participant reported that she and another participant had been “in a bad mood this
morning; our regional approach was going to be ‘Off with their heads!’ We’ve got too
much of the Red Queen in us!” Notably, participants in other groups also used
metaphorical dismemberment language reminiscent of this image. One described
downsizing in the past as “a bloated agency cutting some weight,” another shared the
consequences of showing Jester influence to middle management as “you get your head
cut off,” a third expressed fear that a former agency director would “whack someone on
the head,” and a fourth described OPHD in the image exercise at the start of the focus
group as an “ace in the sleeve, fake democracy within bureaucracy and lack of
transparency.” I discuss the metaphorical implications of this finding in Chapter 6.
All groups except the represented employees discussed the Caregiver at length
and focused their conversation on the similarity between the Caregiver and Ruler Shadow
word clouds. A former employee noted that the Caregiver/Ruler Shadow concept of
inequity is “most visible, what we project to the public…we have a delusion that we have
the capacity [to address inequity].” Expanding upon this idea, a manager commented that
in order to effectively address human issues, the agency’s archetypal Ruler must integrate
the Caregiver’s qualities by becoming more nurturing and take the risk to make itself
vulnerable by tapping into love.
Discussion in the former employee and executive leadership groups further
characterized the quality of the archetypal Caregiver within OPHD. One member of the
executive team described the Caregiver as connected to the Ancient Greek goddess
Hestia, and a former employee noted that nurses strongly identify with and exemplify the
Caregiver archetype. One member of this group wrestled with the concept of the
Caregiver somewhat, questioning what differentiated it from the Lover archetype.
Another participant responded with an explanation related to the power differential
inherent in the Caregiver pattern in relationships, and posited that within the context of
OPHD the Caregiver is about relationship with those served whereas Lover is more about
collegial relationships or partnerships. Yet another participant in this group commented,
“I don’t see Caregiver at all in OPHD leadership,” and offered this dynamic as a possible
cause for friction between leaders and Caregiver-informed sections of the division, and as
a root cause of OPHD’s challenging relationships with local public health authorities.
The former employees discussed at some length the Caregiver/Ruler shadow
dynamic indicated in the document analysis as a reflection of the state/county
relationship. One participant noted that the number of nurses among state-level public
health staff had declined simultaneously with OPHD’s decreasing responsibility to
provide direct care. The participant elaborated that this effect had system-level
consequences and was caused by close-to-universal health care access provided by the
Affordable Care Act and Oregon’s Cover All Kids legislation. Another member of this
group offered the opinion that a lack of adaptability among county-level nurses who
exemplify the Caregiver had contributed to a dug-in attitude related to modernization-
related public health system change and an ironic lack of progress in responding to
community-level needs regarding health equity.
All four groups discussed the Creator archetype and agreed that the two most
frequently occurring concepts in the word cloud—efficiency and systems—accurately
reflect what OPHD is best at. One manager said, “Efficient systems, that’s our purpose!”
and a member of the executive team laughingly commented, “Efficiency and systems—
that’s as creative as we’re going to get!” All groups except the executive team agreed
that the low level of Creator archetype representation within OPHD’s public
modernization documents accurately reflected the narrow and rather stilted sense of
creative possibility they felt within the agency. A former employee proposed that this
dynamic reflected prior leadership’s limited view of OPHD’s role and capabilities.
However, members of the executive team expressed puzzlement regarding the
relative lack of Creator archetype that had manifested in the document analysis,
especially given OPHD’s national reputation as a public health modernization trailblazer.
One participant asked, “The fact is, four years ago internally we were able to start this
[modernization process], so what was it…that allowed us to really re-vision public health
practice?” This participant also noted that employees influenced by the Creator and
Jester archetypes took risks to pull together the initial concept for Oregon House Bill
3100, which legislatively mandated the public modernization process without providing
specific guidance about how this might be achieved.
Learning archetypes: Sage, Explorer, and Innocent. All four focus groups
agreed with the document analysis findings regarding the Sage as the most strongly
expressed archetype in the Learning quadrant. One manager referred to data as the
“bread and butter” of OPHD, noting that “nothing, unless it’s in data, is true” in the
agency. Major nodes of discussion inspired by the Sage and Sage shadow archetype
word clouds included criticism of truthfulness and the relative nature of interpreting
meaning from data, the surprising lack of learning in the OPHD Sage’s archetypal
profile, communication challenges indicated in the Sage Shadow word cloud, and a
veiled but potentially significant conversation about the Sage archetype and classism in
OPHD.
The departed employee focus group discussion of the Sage surfaced some
strongly emotional responses from one participant, especially related to “data equals
truth” as the centerpiece of OPHD’s scientific philosophy. This participant questioned,
“What does the data show? It’s an artifact of how you collect it and the context and how
you interpret it.” This participant also described strong lip service to evidence-based
practice within the agency, and noted that “evidence-based” is a relative term that can be
used to justify personal opinion and preferences. The participant offered the opinion that
“evidence-based” is used more as a fashionable phrase and relative truth than as a strict
ethical guideline. This participant also noted the agency’s tendency to run with the latest
study as the new truth, as well as the “religious practice” within OPHD’s analysts of
assessing association and calling it causality. The vehemence of these remarks indicated
to me the potential existence of a complex, but it is difficult to infer whether this complex
was manifesting at an individual or organizational level.
More measured conversations about the Sage noted the absence of the concept of
learning within OPHD’s Sage word cloud. All four groups discussed the significance of
this finding, especially given that the Sage was the most frequently manifesting
archetypal influence within the Learning quadrant. Comments ranged from “I think that
says a lot about us” (managers), to specific examples of OPHD’s resistance to change in
spite of external encouragement from CDC regarding emerging data (former employees),
to relation of a personal experience of organizational hubris upon starting work at OPHD
(executive team). This participant said, “Frankly, people [in other divisions and the
Governor’s office] didn’t like the Public Health Division. Everybody was snotty. We do
knowing, we don’t do learning.” Another member of this group noted that the lack of
learning as a Sage concept in the documents implies egotism and lack of humility within
OPHD’s organizational culture.
All four groups’ discussions expanded on how this organizational tendency
contributes to external communication challenges and power imbalances with partner

agencies and organizations, as well as with members of the public. Members of the
executive team acknowledged that they have identified communication as an area of
organizational weakness, and that the agency’s structures for “listening in” are provided
upon OPHD’s terms rather than being responsive to the needs and communication styles
of Oregon’s diverse communities. This group also acknowledged that OPHD’s
opportunities for listening to public comment and feedback are both limited and
disconnected from structures for feeding information back out to the public. Two other
groups discussed the importance of not repeating the agency’s historical tendency to ask
for community input as a mere formality when the information stakeholders provided was
unlikely to affect decisions or outcomes. One participant noted that this pattern, along
with a tendency to provide science-based guidance whether it was asked for or not, was
likely to be perceived externally as arrogant, colonizing behavior—“dominant culture,
dominant idea, dominant thinking”—and was a cause of disillusionment among external
organizations and the public. Another described the classist nature of typical
epidemiological communication as “we’ll give you a couple of code words and walk
away.” Discussion in the manager group was less overtly critical, and acknowledged that
the agency has a tendency to communicate poorly in spite of good intentions due to its
use of the wrong messengers and language. A manager noted that the practice of
epidemiology breeds rigid thinking because it is quite exacting and formulaic, and only
counts certain types of data as viable information. This participant said,
We have a narrow idea of what sources we can rely on…it is much more
challenging to look beyond [our usual data sources] and get feedback from
communities and other stakeholders…[but] wisdom is broader than data.

This quote indicates the need to look beyond current statistically oriented data sources
and engage in other kinds of research through community engagement.
Focus group discussions about the Explorer archetype debated the accuracy of the
document analysis, which indicated a relatively weak Explorer influence within the
agency. Given the dominance of words like assessment, strategy, evidence, and policy in
the Explorer word cloud, participants interpreted this manifestation as rather “careful,”
and a representing a “very sane, deliberate, poking its toe in the water” kind of Explorer.
A few participants felt that a weak expression of the Explorer was to be expected due to
OPHD’s status as a bureaucratic agency. However, others were surprised that the
Explorer was not a stronger archetypal influence given OPHD’s leadership role in the
entrepreneurial adventure of public health modernization. These participants described
how archetypes relating to innovation and blazing new trails are needed within OPHD
more than ever.
In a related tangent of discussion, a member of the executive team expressed how
important an influence the Explorer had been in the early part of the modernization
process: “What was it about us that allowed us to…really go out on a limb four years
ago?…We’re hearing from other states, ‘How did you even get people to think about
that?’” Following this comment, another participant noted that the agency needs more
archetypal Explorer influence because it does not currently attract many innovative
people. This group further discussed the possibility of leveraging Explorer influences
from external organizations or contractors, and noted that the Oregon state legislature had
in effect given OPHD permission to scout new territory by “going out of our systems of
thinking,” and even making mistakes as part of the experiment of public health
modernization.
Much of the discussion regarding the Innocent archetype was taken up in
discussing its general nature and noting examples of organizations that might express it
strongly, including family owned businesses, food pantries, churches, and the Rajneesh
community that was formerly active in Central Oregon. While one former employee
commented that OPHD’s relationship with the legislature also fit the Innocent profile
(“We keep going and asking for handouts”), others noted a personal sense of discomfort
regarding this archetype. “I’m glad we don’t have more Innocent!” said a manager,
elaborating that in her interpretation the presence of the Innocent archetype indicates
avoidance of difficult decisions. Others in this group noted that an organization
influenced by the Innocent was unlikely to “rock the boat” or “ruffle the waves.” The
represented employee group discussed the inherent power imbalance in the
Ruler/Innocent relationship, and noted that the Innocent looks up to an authority figure
and wants it to be in charge. One participant interpreted this as implying that a person or
agency strongly expressing the Innocent archetype is “ignorant and stupid and needs
paternalism.” This comment engendered critical discussion of the potential benevolence
of the archetypal Ruler’s influence when it honors community wisdom and recognizes
resource imbalances, but questioned how far this might go: “Benevolence is good and
caring until it’s not.” The vehemence of this statement, especially coupled with the
pejorative characterization of the Innocent described above, seems indicate the presence
of a personal or organizational complex related to this archetype. I further discuss this
finding in Chapter 6.
People archetypes: Everyperson, Lover, and Jester. All four focus groups
agreed with the document analysis finding that identified Everyperson as the most
frequently expressed archetype in the People quadrant. Although groups differed in
opinion as to whether the intended audience of the documents was legislators or the
public, a manager described the Everyperson word cloud as the clearest and easiest to
interpret of all. She explained this by noting that many concepts connected to
Everyperson—especially equity and civic responsibility—represent a foundational
cultural aspects of public health practice. “We are responsible to all Oregonians,” she
said, “and we have to make the tough decisions and prioritize resources and people.” She
noted that this perspective includes acceptance of the reality that equitable distribution of
resources for the benefit of the common good often means unequal distribution, and that
this dynamic can make OPHD unpopular with local public health authorities who all
want resources to support public health initiatives in their jurisdictions.
Participants in the represented employee and manager focus groups discussed
how Everyperson ideals inspire their work in public health. Points of inspiration included
an interest in addressing the social determinants of health (DeSalvo et al., 2016), a desire
to serve the common welfare, and the shared sense that “we believe in the people in this
state and what we can accomplish together.” Participants in the represented employee
group and the executives noted the unionization of public health workers in Oregon as an
important organizational dynamic related to the function of the archetypal Everyperson in
OPHD. Everyperson’s focus on diversity and equity within the field of public health
surfaced as a topic of discussion among executives and managers. One manager added a
critical tone to this conversation by noting that from the perspective of a person of color,
the white majority in Oregon finds it easy to hide behind white dominant culture and
avoid addressing disparities.
Focus group discussion of the Lover archetype was much less extensive.
Participants generally agreed with the document analysis finding that the influence of the
Lover within OPHD’s organizational psyche is much less than that of many other
archetypes. One former employee commented that this was a relatively recent
development: “the Lover component with its trust relationship has definitely changed
from previous years…[when] we had more trust, conversational back and forth.” All
four focus groups noted an important opportunity in supporting the Lover archetype to
express itself more fully within OPHD. Managers discussed the challenge of changing
culture toward interacting and listening rather than telling, and suggested that managers
should model risk taking to encourage a more supportive culture. A manager also noted
that tapping into love as an influence on relationship can help those in power be more
effective in addressing disparities and inequities. The executive team mused about how
to create space in the organization for the sense of service and vocation, care, and respect
for mutual relationship that the Lover archetype supports. A represented employee noted
that love is an important common value among OPHD’s employees: “Isn’t that why
we’re all here?”
As the least frequently manifesting archetypal influence in the document analysis,
the Jester received a disproportionate amount of attention and discussion among the focus
groups. Topics of conversation related to the Jester archetype included discussion about
the role of the Jester in a bureaucratic agency, the implications of a weakly manifesting
Jester for OPHD’s organizational culture, examples of how the Jester does manifest
within OPHD, discussions of how the Jester might be encouraged to manifest more
strongly, and recognition of my (the researcher’s) role as Jester within the organization.
Managers and executives agreed that the Jester archetype would not be likely to
manifest strongly within OPHD’s modernization documents; one executive suggested
that the documents lacked Jester influence because humor had been edited out of them.
A manager commented that while Jester influence was contrary to OPHD’s desired
public persona, more Jester influence might show through in documents not subject to the
Freedom of Information Act.
However, participants in all groups did interpret the lack of Jester influence in the
public document analysis as a true reflection of its function within OPHD’s
organizational psyche. A manager noted, “I think the fact that the Jester doesn’t show up
says something. That’s the darkest subconscious thing that we don’t do.” A represented
employee with a Jungian outlook described the Jester as in the organizational shadow,
and noted that the lack of trust between OPHD and other organizations resonated with
this finding. A member of the executive leadership team invoked the image of Puck in
this discussion, describing him as “the character who speaks truth to power.” She
described the lack of Jester influence in the document analysis as “a cautionary tale,” a
reminder that the tendency of those in power to lose touch with reality is a weakness of
government hierarchy.
One former employee suggested that the emotional intensity of the work that
OPHD employees engage in makes it difficult for the Jester to show up in the workplace,
and another told a story about how an attempt at a joke fell flat in a meeting. A manager
also noted awareness of incidents in the past when speaking the truth might have the
consequence of “being put on a black list.” Although participants in this group agreed
that this dynamic represented a bygone era, they also agreed that truth-speakers may still
be marginalized within the agency.
In spite of the consensus regarding the Jester as a shadow archetype within
OPHD, participants in all four groups also described examples of specific people known
for a playful, forthright, and lighthearted approach to their work who are genuinely
appreciated, and even cherished, within the agency. The represented and former
employees, as well as the managers, mused quite extensively about how to support such
manifestations of the Jester archetype in OPHD without “getting banged on the head.”
Represented employees disagreed about how this might happen. One participant
suggested that managers should actively encourage lightheartedness and truth-speaking,
while another countered that this responsibility does not just lie with the managers: “It’s
everyone’s job to bring lightness and enthusiasm to their work.” Suggestions from other
groups were for managers to intentionally create space for telling and hearing difficult
truths, for managers to encourage constructive criticism as a valued perspective within
their sections and programs, for people in power to honestly ask for subordinates’
opinions, and to allow comfort with truth-speaking to grow naturally by building trust.
Further discussion of the Jester archetype within the group of managers took a
different turn, focusing on the role of public health institutions in “speaking the truth
based on evidence [data] and practice [experience].” One manager described public
health practitioners in the Jester role as “keeping the truth on the table” in the Oregon
legislature regarding the damaging effect of the tobacco industry upon the health of the
public. Others mentioned how OPHD as a truth-speaking, archetypal Jester had been
silenced on the topic of gun violence.
Former employees and managers also described my researcher role in the agency
as that of an archetypal Jester, and noted that the findings of the archetypal analysis are
important truths to be shared with leaders. At the finish of the former employee focus
group, one participant commented to me, “We nominate you as Jester to speak truth to
power. You’ve got it all!” Following my acknowledgement that the fourth and final
focus group would be comprised of the OPHD executive leadership team, a former
employee commented, “Thank you for doing it, and asking [for our input]. Thank you
for being courageous.”
Organizational Recommendations
Following document analysis and creation of the archetype word clouds, I
generated recommendations and considerations for the agency and presented these for
discussion during the focus groups. I intended these to answer the second research
question: How might analysis of the archetypes active within OPHD’s organizational
psyche help to inform the agency’s development and modernization?
Preliminary recommendations. My preliminary suggestions for the agency are
listed below.
 Balance OPHD’s Hero/Ruler/Sage orientation with other archetypal energies.
The agency’s strong focus on achievement, process, and data is balanced
somewhat by Everyperson (equity). However, given that increased health equity
is a major goal and challenge of transformation, cultivation of other archetypal
influences (Caregiver, Lover, Creator, Magician) will assist in this process.

 Consider how to compensate for the Hero archetype’s tendency to overshadow
the Magician. Organizational leaders should consider whether modernization is
about achieving goals or about system transformation. Those involved in public
health modernization should consistently ask themselves, “Where’s the magic?”
and look for ways to cultivate it.
 Be aware of the implications of the weak Revolutionary expression in OPHD’s
Archetype of Organization. This indicates a potential within the agency for a
focus on superficial change to stymie the opportunity for deep, lasting change
through modernization.
 Be aware of the agency’s potential shadow tendencies toward one-sided
communication, intellectual isolation, and classism. Word frequency analysis of
the Learning quadrant does not indicate a focus on learning within the
modernization process; it indicates a focus on knowing (data, assessing, planning,
and informing). The concepts of learning and communication only show up in
shadow, which indicates the possibility of ivory tower syndrome.
 Avoid becoming a “dinosaur” agency. Explorer and Creator archetypes are
expressed only weakly in OPHD’s Archetype of Organization. This has
concerning implications for OPHD’s ability to learn and creatively respond to
change, and indicates a danger of the agency becoming outmoded and unable to
adapt to changing circumstances.
 Consider the consequences of OPHD’s organizational persona skewing away
from People and toward Results/Stability. This has potentially negative
implications regarding the wellbeing of employees and the quality of the agency’s
external relationships. This tendency may further the perception that OPHD as an
agency cares more about results and process than about its employees and the
people it serves.
 Be mindful of the power imbalance inherent in the Ruler/Innocent relationship.
The Innocent archetype word frequency data implies the potential for a
parent/child relationship dynamic between OPHD and its external partners. This
may be appropriate for agency functions that manifest a Caregiver role (e.g., the
WIC nutrition program, provision of screening services through the Breast and
Cervical Cancer Program, or the CareAssist HIV medication assistance program).
However, given OPHD’s strong Ruler tendency, aspects of the agency that work
with county public health authorities, federally recognized tribes that must be
treated with particular respect as sovereign nations, and other external partners
should be mindful of the power and resources imbalance inherent in the
Ruler/Innocent relationship. The similarity between the agency’s archetypal
expression of Caregiver and Ruler shadow adds to the importance of agency-level
self-reflection regarding relationship challenges.
 The virtual absence of the Jester’s archetypal influence within OPHD’s
organizational persona has important implications. These include challenges with
employee morale and a lack of ability for rank-and-file employees to speak
uncomfortable truths to those in positions of power and authority. Organizational
leaders should actively recruit and support employees who can act in this role, and
model candid communication and transparency to encourage those playing the
archetypal role of Jester within the organization.

 Leaders should be aware of the potential for employees who manifest archetypes
in the organizational shadow to become outcasts or scapegoats. Leaders should
use their influence to protect the following archetypal tendencies from
marginalization: (a) Jesters: those speaking uncomfortable or unpleasant truths to
those in power; (b) Revolutionaries: critics, rule-benders, change agents; (c)
Creators: inventors and innovators; and (d) Explorers: entrepreneurs and
groundbreakers.
 Leaders should consider the following uncomfortable reflections on equity:
Who is OPHD’s archetypal Hero trying to save? Has permission been granted for
this? Who really makes the rules? What are the implications of knowledge
without learning? Who decides which kinds of knowledge and which ways of
knowing are legitimate? Who do the agency’s structures and processes serve?
Who might hear the voice of the Hero/Ruler/Sage (achievement/authority/
expertise) as the language of oppression or of the oppressor? Is there openness
and safety in speaking truth to power?
 Organizational leaders should engage all employees in identifying and cultivating
opportunities to nurture missing values, including connection, communication,
magic, humor and light-heartedness, kindness, love, spontaneity, flexibility,
mystery, open-heartedness, transparency, openness to discomfort, trust, curiosity,
and humility.
I offered the above recommendations for discussion during focus groups.
Recommendations from focus groups. Following reflection upon my
recommendations, focus group participants offered additional recommendations in

answer to the second research question: How might analysis of the archetypes active
within OPHD’s organizational psyche help to inform the agency’s development and
modernization? Table 4 summarizes the recommendations suggested by focus group
participants.
Table 4. Summary of Focus Group Recommendations

Theme Specific Recommendations
 Encourage a culture of risk taking while remaining mindful of

the organizational image.
Increase the
agency’s  Leaders should consider how to protect, facilitate, and encourage
comfort with risk takers within OPHD.
risk
 Leaders should model risk taking to encourage a supportive
culture.
 More clearly articulate vision for modernization in general –

many employees and managers are still unclear what it means
Clarify for their work.
modernization  Articulate what specifically will need to happen differently
during and after modernization and how it will make a difference
to employees and those the agency serves.
 Identify and support employees who can help manifest

archetypes in the organizational shadow (Jester, Explorer,
Creator, Lover).
 Leverage external partnerships and contractors to support
archetypes in the organizational shadow.
 Make space in OPHD for people who are more people oriented.
Support overall
balance of  Support the Creator as a way to compensate for the challenges of
archetypal supporting Revolutionaries in government.
influences
 Engage Explorers and innovators from the community and
among the agency’s contractors.
 Actively hire and support employees who manifest Explorer and
Jester attributes.
 Work across the agency to reduce fear of change and enhance
interpersonal and inter-organizational relationships.
 Create and welcome opportunities to have difficult or

uncomfortable conversations.
 Do not ask for input from employees, external partners or the
community without a commitment to really use it.
Support frank
and honest  Make an extra effort to ensure that people invited to provide
communication input are well equipped to do so effectively and that
opportunities are plentiful, community based, culturally
responsive, and accessible.
 Value curiosity, especially when you do not really want to hear
answers that may be critical or challenging.
 Consider what it means archetypally to be a Ruler and address

equity: what archetypal influences do you need to personally
draw upon?
 Reflect on how you found a path to success in the organization.
What was the turning point that made you stay?
 Be open to feedback from document analysis and focus groups.
 Continue to reflect on the equity questions presented in focus
Recommen- groups.
dations for  Create more opportunities for employees with a practice-based
leaders and orientation to put their knowledge to use rather than making
managers them conform to the current norms in the agency.
 Model risk taking and speaking of difficult truths to those in
power.
 Provide managers with training in how to hire and support
Revolutionaries (change agents), Jesters (truth tellers), and
Explorers (innovators).
 Allow humor and organizational lightness to grow naturally by
developing trust between layers of the organizational hierarchy.
 Present document analysis and focus group findings at OPHD

Grand Rounds.
 Help employees contemplate their place in the organization and
the implications of match or mismatch between their personal
Recommen- archetypal manifestation and the agency’s archetypal profile.
dations for  Facilitate more archetypally based conversations among
the researcher managers. Frame these in terms of “What does this mean to
you?” rather than providing specific answers or
recommendations.
 Create and present an executive summary of findings with clear
recommendations for the agency and present this to leaders.
Responses to this question clustered around a few themes: support for overall archetypal
balance within the organization, suggestions to improve communication, suggestions for
creating a more risk-tolerant agency, improved articulation of the concept of
modernization, and specific suggestions for managers, executive leaders, and the
researcher.
Answering the Research Questions: A Summary of Findings
What archetypes are active within OPHD’s organizational psyche? Findings from
the document analysis clearly identified the Hero, Ruler, and Sage as the archetypes most
frequently expressed within the OPHD persona. Focus group discussions corroborated
and expanded upon these findings by describing the quality and flavor of these archetypal
influences. Discussions characterized the archetypal Hero as an achiever—as well as a
potentially unconscious, colonizing savior—hampered and challenged by risk adversity,
disparity, and inequity. The archetypal Ruler expressed in OPHD’s persona, focused on
systems and implementation, is equally challenged by community issues and disparities,
possibly deluded about its true level of power, and connected with shadow qualities that
reflect the autocratic and capricious aspects of leadership reminiscent of Lewis Carroll’s
(2014) Queen of Hearts. The archetypal Sage as expressed in the documents and
elaborated in discussions is narrowly focused on empirical data as the only source of truth
(which may be relative, depending upon interpretation), and hampered by communication
challenges and a lack of focus on learning.
Focus group discussions also agreed with and elaborated upon the document
analysis findings regarding the most infrequently expressed archetypes in OPHD’s
organizational persona. Discussions described the Explorer as cautious, challenged by
bureaucracy, and mysteriously absent, and the Revolutionary as historically active at an
organizational level but also challenged by bureaucracy. Focus groups also noted how
the Creator is underappreciated and limited to supporting efficiency and systems, and
how the weakly expressed Jester implies difficulty in speaking difficult truths to those in
positions of power in the agency. Taken together, these results provide a clear answer to
the first research question.
How might the analysis of these archetypes active in OPHD’s organizational
psyche help to inform the organization’s development and modernization? The responses
to this research question that emerged from the data are threefold. First, increased
knowledge of the agency’s default tendencies—both conscious and unconscious—can
provide employees at all levels in the agency important opportunities to reflect upon the
implications of OPHD’s dominant archetypal Hero/Ruler/Sage trifecta, specifically:
focus on results and process at the expense of relationships and employee wellbeing,
power imbalances, and prioritization of knowing over learning. Second, enhanced
understanding of the implications of the infrequently expressed Explorer, Revolutionary,

Creator, and Jester will shed light on the agency’s shadow qualities of risk aversion; lack
of commitment to innovation and new ways of knowing, thinking, and doing; and lack of
safety in speaking truth to those in positions of power within the agency. Third, an
understanding of the overall pattern of expression within OPHD’s Archetype of
Organization can help the agency to surmount its challenges by consciously integrating
its shadow archetypes. In sum, this increased self-knowledge holds promise and could
lead the agency toward organizational wholeness.

Chapter 5. Findings from Transferential Data
Although the findings described in Chapter 4 thoroughly answer the research
questions, this inquiry aspires to see even more clearly into OPHD’s organizational
psyche. My inspiration to “see through” surface appearances in this way comes from a
core tenet of depth psychology: that “the psyche can and does express itself in the
physical realm through symptom, sickness, and sensation, [and] in the imaginal realm
through image, fantasy, or intuition” (Coppin & Nelson, 2005, p. 65).
This inquiry also acknowledges the transference and countertransference that
commonly occur between analyst and analysand. In honor of these premises, I used
several additional methods to collect and analyze data that explored the transference
inherent in the “relationship between observer and observed, between researcher and
topic” (p. 98). These data took the form of participants’ written comments gleaned from
focus group feedback worksheets and from my own dreams, journal entries, and field
notes following focus group facilitation, as well as from the images that manifested
through my weekly mandala drawing practice.
Emotional and Somatic Data from Participants
I distributed the first of these data collection instruments—participant feedback
worksheets—at the start of the focus groups and collected them at the end of the sessions.
They provided an optional, private, and non-verbal means of sharing information
regarding participants’ emotional status and somatic symptoms during the focus groups.
The worksheets also collected cognitive, emotional, and somatic responses to an exercise
that involved choosing an image from the VisualsSpeak Image Set® in response to the
prompt, “Find an image that speaks to you in relation to the Public Health Division.
Don’t think about it too much, just sift through and pick the first image that really appeals
to you.” I then provided time for participants to describe the image and its connection to
their experience of the agency either verbally or on the worksheet. I facilitated this
exercise early in the focus group discussions and, as time allowed, repeated it at the end
of the sessions, inviting participants to either choose a new image or continue reflecting
on the one they had chosen at the beginning of the session.
While focus group worksheets provided enriched data on participants’ emotional
experiences and somatic responses during the sessions, this dataset is somewhat
incomplete; due to time constraints, most participants completed only the baseline
emotional and somatic assessment and the initial image exercise. I received worksheets
back from each of the represented employees (100% response), none of the managers
(0% response), six former employees (100% response) and five executive leadership
team members (71.4% response). The lack of response from the managers was due to an
oversight in facilitation; in this focus group I distributed worksheets to participants at the
end of the session. Although I acknowledged the error and invited managers to complete
the worksheets following the group, I received none back.
However, participants described a wide range of emotions at the start of the focus
groups by means of the optional worksheets. The most commonly expressed emotion
was anxiety (11 participants); of these, five participants noted a sense of apprehension,
caution, or concern. Two participants related anxiety to fear of suffering negative
consequences if they were to say something during the session that they might regret or
“be called out for.” A few participants noted fatigue, distraction, or resignation at the
start of the groups, and several described underlying stress and emotional tension due to
the demands of their jobs or a sense of overwhelm caused by a busy schedule. One
represented employee noted an inability to fit self-care into her work day, commenting, “I
would love to be doing some yoga today but no time for it, unfortunately.” There were
nearly as many participants who framed their baseline emotional state in positive terms,
noting excitement, pleasant anticipation, enthusiasm, optimism, curiosity, and happiness
due to reconnection with former colleagues. Others described feelings of calmness,
wellbeing, peace, relaxation, focus, relief, and openness at the start of focus group
sessions. The variety of emotional responses to the impending focus groups appears to
me to reflect the wide range of personalities, job types, workplace experiences, and
archetypal influences represented within the participants themselves.
Participants also noted variety within the somatic symptoms they described on
their worksheets at the beginning of focus group sessions. While one participant felt a
sense of warmth, six others felt cool or cold, which one former employee evocatively
described as “cold feet—literally.” Two participants noted muscle tension in their
shoulders, another two described tight hips, and two shared a sense of general muscle
tension or “feeling tightly wound.” Two participants started the focus groups feeling a
sense of physical comfort, while six others reported physical pain in their necks, heads,
hips, or backs as the sessions commenced. However, one participant noted an unusual
lack of physical pain, “which is great, because I usually have neck and back pain,” and
another described improvement of pain during the session: a “sore back, but getting less
sore.” Two participants described discomfort or fatigue related to prolonged sitting, and
five described sleepiness or fatigue at the start of the focus groups. Not surprisingly, a
participant who took part in a session held during the lunch hour also noted hunger.
These responses seem to reflect the somatic effects of sedentary work and indicate that at
least some participants engage in regular physical self-care during the OPHD workday.
The initial image exercise in the focus groups generated a wide range of
emotional responses. I have summarized these in Table 5, which groups the descriptors
coded from the worksheet data into thematic categories.
Table 5. Major Emotional Themes Generated by the Initial Focus Group Image Exercise
Responses to the prompt: “What emotions come up for you as you contemplate the image
you chose?”
Theme Baseline Descriptors Final Descriptors

(Start of Focus Group) (End of Focus Group)
Positive Enjoyment, pleasure, wonder, focus, Love, nurturance, humor,

engagement and fascination, gratitude, reflection, happiness, enjoyment,
connection appreciation, pride, respect, validation
teamwork, friendship, history
telling, curiosity, celebration
Mediocrity, boredom, resignation, Concern, sadness, anxiety,

confusion, frustration, brokenness, feeling disheartened,
Disconnection lack of creativity, sadness, pessimism, disconnection,
smugness, arrogance, lack of hypocrisy, compromise
appreciation, mistrust,
disconnection, ignorance, gray,
brown
Opportunity and Possibility, incompleteness, hope, Hope, insight, change

possibility pathway, leadership
Stability Stability, order, structure, Peace, satisfaction,

steadiness, solidity, reassurance, calmness, comfort
calmness, contentment
Theme Baseline Descriptors Final Descriptors

Difference Diversity, contrast, complexity, --

tension
Note. A notation of -- indicates no responses in this category.
Interestingly, the first four thematic categories of participants’ emotional experiences
within focus groups appear to reflect the flavor of the four quadrants within the
Archetype of Organization: People (positive engagement and connection), Results or the
shadow of the People quadrant (disconnection), Learning (opportunity and possibility)
and Stabilizing (stability). I interpret the fifth category—difference—as reflecting the
dynamic tension of archetypal influences within the Archetypal of Organization model.
I have summarized participants’ somatic reactions within the focus groups in
Table 6.
Table 6. Somatic Data Generated by the Focus Group Image Exercise
Responses to the prompt: “What physical sensations come up for you as you contemplate
the image you chose?”
Baseline Descriptors Final Descriptors

Theme
Tension, fear, anxiety, chest --
Anxiety
tightness
Relaxation Relaxation, calm, warmth Relaxation, slower breathing

Baseline Descriptors Final Descriptors

Theme
Compassion, love, humor, “tingly Joy, “a smile”

Connection
goodness”
Change Disappointment, desire to move Energy
No sensation Nothing (seven responses) --
Fatigue, thirst, sunshine,

Other Hunger, watering mouth
natural smells
Note. A notation of -- indicates no responses in this category.
Due to the relative dearth of somatic data collected from focus groups, it is more
challenging to interpret these responses. However, the sense of physical tension that
several participants noted at the start of groups is likely a holdover from their workplace
experiences in the hours leading up to the groups. It could also accompany physical
tension related to anxiety about self-exposure that at least one participant noted as an
emotional response. Feelings of physical relaxation that other participants described may
indicate high interpersonal congruence within the groups. While hunger and thirst were
probably related to diurnal patterns rather than focus group material per se, two
participants noted somatic experiences—a watering mouth, a physical experience of
sunshine, and sensation of natural smells—that were directly related to the images they
chose from the VisualsSpeak® deck. This indicates that some participants experienced
these images to be somatically evocative. The lack of tension in the final descriptors
collected at the end of the focus groups may indicate somatic relaxation among some
participants in response to the focus group process itself; the opportunity to share their
experiences and connect with other employees by means of the discussion may have
dispelled a degree of physical tension.
Findings from the Researcher’s Dream, Mandala, and Journal Data
I also collected data reflecting my personal transference to the inquiry during the
seven-month time period between the approval of my dissertation proposal in October
2017 and the end of focus group data analysis in April 2018. These data include
transcripts of 95 nighttime dreams, 30 weekly research journal entries, and 30 images
generated through weekly mandala drawing, as well as field notes collected immediately
following facilitation of each of the four focus groups.
To make the large amount of dream data manageable to analyze, I focused
thematic analysis on ten dreams that had especially strong emotional or somatic
resonance. I analyzed dream images using the same deductive 12-archetype/12 archetype
shadow coding matrix I used for the document analysis (Appendix B). Following this, I
conducted inductive coding using the ATLAS.ti network feature to identify clusters of
thematic material that invoked metaphor, echoed myth, or contained symbolism
evocative of alchemical processes.
The deductive coding process identified clusters of material from dreams that
evoked the Caregiver, Magician, and Innocent archetypes. The Caregiver manifested in
notably negative terms via central images that included neglected captive birds of prey, a
fire in a warehouse health clinic, and a young child sitting in the street that is hit by a car
while its parents are distracted. I noted that these dreams also involved endangered or
neglected Innocent images. I interpret this tendency as an unconscious reflection of the
conflict between my perception of the Innocent as a strongly manifesting archetype

within my OTCI™ results (see Appendix E) and the negative organizational complex
regarding the Innocent that surfaced in the focus groups. Three other dreams involved
central images with strong feminine Magician qualities, which correlates with the
transformational aspects of this inquiry discussed in Chapter 6. In these, my dream ego
played a herald/priestess role in a theater production that was to involve sacrifice of a
young woman; witnessed an older woman (perhaps an image of the goddess Hygeia?)
with several snakes wrapped around her generously proportioned, naked body; and
injected heroin with an older African American woman of similar proportions.
The latter of these dreams was an intensely somatic experience accompanied by
strong physical and emotional sensations of profound, ecstatic bliss. In contrast, in
several other dreams my dream ego was witness to devastating images of damage to other
bodies: a toddler hit by a car, a plane crash, a clinic fire, the suicide of coworker, and a
man shackled to black rocks about to drown beneath a slowly rising tide. I interpreted as
significant the nightmarish quality of the majority of these ten emotionally impactful
dreams that appeared during the most intensive period of data collection and analysis.
This was especially true given that I have experienced very few nightmares in my life
apart from this time period. I interpret this finding as related to and reflective of the
highly psychoactive nature of this inquiry.
In addition to recording and analyzing my dreams, each week I drew a mandala,
most of which I described with a brief title; these images are presented in Appendix F.
Each of the drawings began with a circle; the first seven drawings include a significant
amount of content that breaks frame by extending beyond the boundary of the circle.
When viewed together, images 1-13 present as progression of a labyrinthine spiral
image—development, maturation, and rupture—that “indicates a rapid spiritual or
psychological transformation process” within the Mandala Assessment Research
Instrument or MARI® methodology of mandala interpretation (Loumeau-May, 2013, p.
273). The first image (It’s Complicated) has a partially shaggy edge on one side, as well
as three protrusions that evoke the image of a volcano or small rupture. Drawings 2-4
(Untitled, Becoming the Phoenix, and The Eye is the Storm) have larger protrusions of
roughly triangular or semi-crescent shapes. In drawing 5 (Chunky Swirly or Heart of
Green) the green emanation from the circle’s center evokes the MARI® Beginning stage,
a “singular form centered within the circle…compared to an embryo…[which] represents
the coming into focus of something new” (p. 273). In drawings 6 (Chunky Swirly II or
The Eyes of the Storm) and 7 (Armistice) this protruding content connects to a
developing spiral form in the center of the image, which begins right-handed in drawing
6 and changes to left-handed in drawing 7. Drawing 8 (Life/Death Spiral) contains a
small central spiral in a void of black surrounded by layers of disconnected lenticular
forms. It is followed by Drawing 9 (Untitled), a large right-handed spiral and five
smaller spirals (two right-handed, five left-handed) that appear as eddies of the main
spiral current, all of which are contained entirely within the boundary of the circle.
Drawing 10 (The Wheel of Life) contains a large left-handed spiral in the central image
with a small tail-like protrusion outside the bounding circle. Drawings 11-13 (Variations
on a Ruptured Eardrum, The Light in the Darkness, and The Light of Great Fires to the
North) contain various configurations of crescent shapes, and 12 and 13 contain lines
emanating from the center of the circle toward the top of the image. Drawing 13 again
breaks frame, with a single emanation toward the bottom of the image and shaggy
protrusions from the top section of the circle that creates a tulip-like shape.
With the exception of Image 26 (Shield of the Tribe), images 14-30 are all
contained within the circle boundary. Drawings 14 (The End and the Beginning) and 15
(The Nameless One) are structurally similar; they evoke a medicine wheel or solar cross
image of four equal quadrants within a circle. These images correspond to Squaring of
the Circle, (Loumeau-May, 2013, p. 274) a stage of ego development that “functions as
the resolution of the previous [Paradoxical Split] stage and the successful integration of
opposite forces.” While drawing 14 is spare and unadorned, 15 contains four left-handed
spiral eddies within the dark space in the central cross that again evoke the Labyrinth
stage.
Image 16 (Planet Dissertation) is strikingly different from those preceding it; this
drawing contains a left-handed spiral on the left side of the image, three strong zigzag
bands that diagonally bisect the image, and a field of five partial crescent eddy patterns
on the right-hand side. This image contains elements of the MARI® Labyrinth and
Paradoxical Split stages (Loumeau-May, 2013, p. 274).
Drawings 17-20 appear as another series of images with strong bilateral
symmetry. Image 17 (It’s Complicated, a. k. a. Jellyfish Gonads) is a vertically and
horizontally balanced solar cross image with four distinct ovals; this image resembles the
bell of a Medusa jellyfish (subphylum Medusozoa) and again evokes the Squaring of the
Circle. Images 18 (CloudShieldScarab) and 19 (Eye of the Needle/Butterfly Wing) have
significant white space with eddy patterns, central emanations, and crescent shapes.
Image 20 (The Light in the Darkness) is a balanced series of elongated ovals emanating
from a black center that evoke a multi-petaled flower against a black background.
Images 21 (Pinwheel/Catherine Wheel/Swastik) and 22 (Heart of Gold) are
strongly colored, left-handed spiral patterns (MARI® Labyrinth phase). The dominant
shapes in 23-25 (Eye of the Storm, Chaos and Order, Finity and Infinity) are wedges of
color that emanate from the central point. These images evoke the MARI®
Fragmentation phase, which may be “recognized by disintegration of form in a fractured,
sometimes pie-like manner” which “indicates an internal disintegration from a formerly
complete state of self in order for new growth to occur” (Loumeau-May, 2013, p. 274).
These three images also resemble the Archetype of Organization mandala (Corlett &
Pearson, 2003).
Images 24-29 are strongly geometrical, and five of these six images contain a
square within the outside circle. Image 26 (Shield of the Tribe) is the only image that
lacks a square, and is also the only drawing in the entire series with a wavy external circle
border. In addition to four quadrants of background color, this mandala also has a
triangular image at center from which emanates an asymmetrical, three-legged, right-
handed swastika that slightly breaks the frame of the circle. Although I felt intuitively
impelled to draw a full four-legged swastika figure here, I experienced such a strong
conscious aversion to the Nazi connotations of this image during the drawing process that
I left it incomplete. In contrast and perhaps in compensation, the image drawn to Image
27 (Purple Heart of Gold) is a squared circle with a purple heart at center that emanates
yellow-orange light toward the periphery. Following this is Image 28 (Perspective),
which combines the squared circle with a red/purple target pattern. Within the MARI®
interpretive scheme a target pattern of concentric circles such as this signifies either
“constriction or…being pushed out of one’s previous existence into a new state of being.”
(p. 274). The next image (29: The Eye of the Needle) contains a triangle at center nested
inside a series of concentric images: square, hexagon, heptagon, and octagon. Image 30
(“Sky Grandmother/Bridging the Gap”) returns to a right-handed central spiral pattern;
unlike any of the previous images it contains several elongated spiral patterns on the
periphery, one of which opens to white space. It also contains two areas where small dots
bridge white space between interrupted patterns, much as neurotransmitters bridge the
synaptic space between neurons. I find the complex patterns and bounded white space of
this final image to be reminiscent of Pacific Northwest indigenous art. This image
completes the mandala series as a full circle that progresses through the MARI® stages
of Labyrinth, Beginning, Squaring of the Circle, Paradoxical Split, Fragmentation and
Target and ends, as at the beginning, with the Labyrinth.
Following each weekly mandala drawing, I completed a brief journal entry. The
final set of data in this analysis includes these entries as well as transcriptions of four
field journal entries that I dictated immediately following facilitation of each focus group.
As with the dream data discussed above, I conducted analysis of combined somatic and
emotional content from journal entries using the same deductive 12-archetype/12
archetype shadow coding rubric I used for the document analysis (see Appendix A for
codebook). Following this, I identified clusters of thematic material guided by metaphor
and alchemical symbolism. I have summarized these in Table 7.

Table 7. Archetypal and Alchemical Thematic Clusters Identified in the Researcher’s
Journal Entries
Archetype or
Emotional and Somatic Themes
Alchemical Body Parts/Functions
(Code Categories)
Process
Intuition, unconscious knowing, Ear/hearing, gut,

Magician
strange smell, altered hearing nose/sinuses/breathing
Unusual body heat, hot flashes, Full body, urinary tract,

Calcinatio hot face, urinary symptoms reproductive organs
(burning), excitement
Challenge, blockage, fatigue, Immune system,

Mortificatio cramps, difficulty, tightness in reproductive system,
shoulders, pain, rupture, illness, musculoskeletal system
allergy, skin outbreaks
Anger, depression, anxiety,

heavy/dark mood, sadness,
Putrefactio
distraction, alcohol use, body Emotional and spiritual body
odor, vulnerability, feeling fat and
flaccid
Resilience, strength, activity,

energy, excitement, satisfaction, Energetic body
Coniunctio
ascent, “finding my stride,” rest,
sleep, yoga practice, emotional
relief, pain relief
I interpret these data as reflecting the profound personal and professional transformation
that I experienced during the dissertation process, as well as the process itself.
Images, colors, and physical sensations that presented in the somatic data gleaned
from my journal entries and the transcripts of my nighttime dreams clustered into three
groups representing alchemical processes: mortificatio/putrefactio (death and decay),
solutio (water), and calcinatio (fire and heat).

Mortificatio, the alchemical equivalent of death, and putrifactio, the process of
rotting and decay, featured prominently in my dreams. Mortificatio, “the most negative
operation in alchemy,” has to do with “darkness, defeat, torture, mutilation, death, and
rotting” (Edinger, 1985, p. 148). Several images evoking these processes manifested in
my dreams in the form of graphically depicted deaths. These were generally related to
the Innocent archetype, and involved a child abandoned in a road and hit by a car, people
in an airplane crash, a co-worker who had died by suicide, and patients at a health clinic
and the people who attempt to rescue them from a fire. A poignant example of
mortificatio imagery appeared in a dream just following submission of my proposal (July
2017):
I’m on a city street, a busy place, a marketplace. There is no market going on, but
there are lots of people around. There are lots of dead bodies along the side of the
road…I have a sense that you shouldn’t ask [why]. There is some political thing
going on. You just bury them and don’t ask questions, don’t find out their
names…. there are probably ten or 12 bodies lying on the street, deliberately
placed and lying right on the curb.
An even more challenging dream image related to the same alchemical process
manifested in a nightmare of worms crawling and multiplying under my skin; this
provided a poignant example of mortificatio, given Edinger’s statement that “worms
accompany putrefaction, and dreams of worms convey this image with powerful impact”
(1985, p. 157). The scarab beetle that appeared in mandala 18 is another image
connected to the process of mortificatio. However, in this case the image is also
connected with resurrection and the eternally renewing solar cycle (Chevalier &
Gheerbrant, 1982, p. 833). Not surprisingly, this image was preceded in the mandala
series by several manifestations of the solar cross/squared circle images. These images
are connected to the alchemical process of nigredo or blackening (Edinger, 1985, p. 149);
I associate them with my psychological process of descent into the unconscious by means
of the psychoactive nature of this inquiry.
Other dream images connected mortificatio with the alchemical process of
solutio. Associated with the element of water, this process represents a formative stage
of psychological development, a dismemberment and dissolution, the return to an
undifferentiated state of prima materia from which other processes may take place
(Edinger, 1985, p. 46). Thus, they may represent for me processes of relinquishment.
Images in several dreams combined these two processes: a box of neglected and dying
sea creatures, a man shackled to dark rocks about to drown under the incoming tide, my
dream ego drowning under a sheet of ice, and a plane crash over water.
Yet other dream images that arose during the dissertation process connect to the
alchemical process of calcinatio. Associated with cleansing, whiteness, and fire,
calcinatio is often listed first in alchemical treatises (Edinger, 1985, p. 18) and evokes
processes of purification and the purging of the nigredo of death and decay (p. 26). A
series of calcinatio dreams that presented throughout my time at Pacifica involved the
burning of structures. The first arrived the night before my first day of classes at
Pacifica: in the dream I calmly doused my own house with gasoline, left a candle burning
as I walked out of the door, and watched the fire from a party at a friend’s house,
wondering if it was legal to burn my own house down if I did not plan to file an insurance
claim. A second dream in this series arrived the night before the start of my final year of
coursework: I had set explosives under a huge tourist hotel and again watched from a
distance—this time fascinated and horrified—as a tremendous explosion and fire
destroyed the structure and hundreds of innocent people inside. I knew that this action
had stopped something even more terrible from happening. The third dream in the series
was much more immediate and present. I am hosing down the inside walls of an old
house full of family heirlooms; the house is on fire from the outside and the whole
neighborhood is in flames.
I associate these dreams with an intensifying process of sweeping change brought
about by the dissertation ritual, which profoundly altered my relationship to my
workplace and my former ways of thinking. The heat of the fires of calcinatio also evoke
the surges of heat I felt while facilitating focus groups and the hot flashes that I began to
experience while writing my dissertation and the profound changes of the menopausal
process, which signal the start of my initiation into the stage of the archetypal Crone.
Summary
The transferential data presented in this chapter are far more challenging to
interpret than the more straightforward and traditional data collected via the document
analysis and focus groups. Somatic and emotional data from participants appears to parse
into categories that roughly correspond to the four quadrants of the Archetype of
Organization and the dynamic tension between them. My own somatic and emotional
data, when coupled with dream transcripts, evoke alchemical motifs that represent potent
transformative processes: death and decay, dissolution and dismemberment, and
transformation by means of purifying fire. In addition to the brief interpretations I have

offered above, I return to many of these themes and images in Chapter 6, which uses
Hillman’s (1975) processes of seeing through to further deepen this inquiry.

Chapter 6. Spiraling Inward and Seeing Through
In this final chapter, I further interpret the meaning and application of the
archetypal themes that I identified within the OPHD organizational unconscious and my
personal unconscious. This deeper interpretation weaves together findings from
document analysis, focus group discussions, and transferential data with an analysis of
my own subjective experiences as a scholar-practitioner.
I frame the following interpretation of the data as a four-part process based on
Hillman’s (1975, p. 140) proposed methodology for seeing through, which I have adapted
for the purpose of organizational analysis. Seeing through involves a deepening and
personalization of my own subjective experience as an insider-researcher in the dual role
of scholar practitioner, a process Hillman described as interiorizing. The process of
seeing through also attempts to psychologize the findings by situating and examining
them within a Jungian analytical framework that includes the Archetype of Organization
(Corlett & Pearson, 2003) and Jung’s own concepts of shadow, complex, and the
transcendent function of psyche (1946/1969, pp. 67-91). I apply Hillman’s concept of the
polytheistic nature of psyche (1975) to the dynamic organizational psyche of OPHD,
using his narrative process of mythologizing to unearth and trace potential tendrils of
connection and resonance between the metaphorical aspects of the linguistic, emotional,
and somatic findings and archetypal material reflected in both ancient and contemporary
mythology. To further inform OPHD’s organizational leadership and Oregon’s public
health modernization process, I also turn to production of ideas in an attempt to answer
the research questions using these new perspectives.

Seeing through is a challenging task; as Hillman noted the processes of
interiorizing, psychologizing, mythologizing, and production of ideas take place
simultaneously and are deeply interrelated (1975, p. 141). As I also discovered, the
process of seeing through is neither linear nor predictable; in my experience of this
inquiry it had more to do with winnowing, threshing, kneading, and leavening than it had
to do with ticking boxes off on a to-do list.
My process, therefore, did not follow a well-beaten path. Following my initial
analysis of the full data set, I felt tangled within a dense thicket of information. To find
my way through, I had to abandon my beloved project Gantt chart that had served so far
as a map and embark upon an iterative and ever-deepening process that mirrored the
spirals that had appeared in my mandalas. I made use of the tools I had with me, drawing
guidance from the mandala-like structure of the Archetype of Organization (Corlett &
Pearson, 2003) and the images that had surfaced from my own unconscious as mandalas.
Eventually I recognized that I could contain and make meaning from the swirl, confusion,
and turmoil of the labyrinthine seeing through process by means of the squared circle,
solar cross, and medicine wheel.
In these images, four parts make a whole that is circular, relational, and
integrative rather than linear or hierarchical. When the circle rotates, as was suggested by
the inward-spiraling motion of many of the mandalas I drew, turning the wheel of seeing
through also traces the path of the hermeneutic circle. As Palmer (1969) described, by
means of this process, “a partial understanding is used to understand still further, like
using pieces of a puzzle to figure out what is missing” (p. 25).

In keeping with the hermeneutic process, I have aspired to approach this work as
a “dialogue, not dissection” (Palmer, 1969, p. 7). My approach acknowledges and
respects both the autonomous nature of the archetypes that dance within the Archetype of
Organization mandala and what Palmer has referred to as the “autonomous being” (p. 7)
of the work—in this case, OPHD’s organizational psyche. I have sought to see through
by means of both intimate, personal knowing and distanced observation. In this process I
have focused on identifying patterns, while also acknowledging that outliers—which, in a
research frame that embraces both the concrete world and mundus imaginalis, may
manifest as anything from the unusual to the bizarre—also contain important information.
The style of this chapter reflects my experience in creating it; although there were
moments of laser-sharp insight and clarity, what often ensued was a messy and
incomplete attempt to interpret whatever I had discovered as part of a larger and partially
obscured image or pattern.
Examination of Tools
Let us begin by examining our tools. As Hillman (1975, p. 141) noted, ideas are
“the soul’s tools…ideas as the eyes of the soul give the psyche its power of insight, its
means of prying open, stripping bare, going through.” In this case, the idea of archetype
enables the OPHD organizational analysis to move beyond literal appearances by
acknowledging and situating this inquiry within the imaginal plane or mundus imaginalis
(Corbin, 1972), the patterns of which manifest in the seen world by means of archetypes.
Situating this work within a world view that includes mundus imaginalis means that
findings and interpretations resonate in an ever-widening continuum of influence and
connection that ranges from my own personal experience outward toward organizational,
cultural, ecological, and ancestral spheres. These spheres are neither tangible nor
distinct, and overlap in some ways that can be consciously interpreted and in others that
necessarily remain obscured in individual and collective shadow. In paying respect to the
complexity that develops especially quickly when we venture beyond the individual
realm of experience into the collective unconscious, I acknowledge that it is impossible to
completely know or understand which findings relate to which perspectives. I have not
attempted to do so, and instead have relied on hint, inference, and intuition. I offer the
insights I have gained so far as potential signposts for future exploration.
Our tool of choice for organizing the archetypes, the Archetype of Organization
mandala (Corlett & Pearson, 2003), provides a useful framework by situating the 12 most
commonly manifesting organizational archetypes within a dynamic, relationally based
model. In my experience, using the Archetype of Organization as a guiding theoretical
framework made this inquiry possible by providing a manageable, meaningful, and
approachable means of connecting to and interpreting a very complex entity: the
organizational psyche. I discovered through practical use of this tool that the Archetype
of Organization reflects basic tensions inherent in organizational life—people vs. results
and stability vs. learning—that people at all levels in the agency could easily understand
and readily relate to. The results of this study also indicate the potential for further study
to investigate specific dynamics of interaction between the archetypal energies
represented in the model (e.g., the Ruler/Innocent relationship). Another fruitful area of
research would investigate the nuances of interaction within the three archetypes of each
of Archetype of Organization quadrants and characterize patterns of dominance and
shadow that reflect specific tendencies within organizational culture.

Interiorizing
Let us move now to interiorizing, whereby I interpret the results of this inquiry
using a personal lens. In this process we are “moving from the surface of visibilities to
the less visible” (Hillman, 1975, p.140) via deepening, personification, and subjectivity.
In keeping with the philosophy guiding this inquiry, my personal experience as a
researcher is important to understand; it forms the backdrop, backstory, and filter through
which the entire study is interpreted. I will begin with the story of how I got here.
I did not consciously choose this project. During my final year of coursework, I
was close to completing a concept paper for an inquiry into the archetypal quality of
people’s relationships with chronic pain. Yet although this topic seemed an obvious fit
with my career goals, it was not meant to be. The inquiry that became this dissertation
literally arrived in April of 2016; after several weeks of feeling uninspired and stuck on
my chosen topic, I stumbled upon Carol Pearson’s Archetypal Native Intelligence
website (www.carolspearson.com). When I clicked to a page titled Mapping the
Organizational Psyche: The Deepest Dive, I broke out in goosebumps and a cold sweat.
My breath became a quick and sharp, and my whole body began to shake. Tears
streamed down my face and I heard myself saying, “It’s here, it’s here, it’s here!” After
several minutes of this experience, I knew that my dissertation path had irrevocably
changed. My way forward seemed obvious: I would map the organizational psyche of
my workplace. This somatic experience of arrival felt like an unexpected gift from the
imaginal world that I could not refuse, and I enthusiastically embraced the concept and
the project. Within two weeks I had completely rewritten my concept paper.
However, the larger implications of this inquiry soon became clear. How could I,
an inexperienced researcher, possibly undertake such a large, complex project within a
highly visible, public setting? And why would anyone in leadership think this project
was a good idea, especially given the regular headlines about questionable management
practices at OHA (Budnick, 2017a, 2017b)? My fears were confirmed in August of
2017, when the OHA director resigned amidst a scandal about the agency’s planned
smear campaign against a contractor that had sued the agency (Manning, 2017). I
wondered if my inquiry was even feasible, and if my career would be in jeopardy if I
published criticism of the agency from within. I was filled with dread and doubt. But by
then, my proposal was close to approval and I knew that I was too far down the path to
turn back.
I also felt the importance of this inquiry, especially because it—in the
autonomous way of archetypes—had chosen me. I knew that it was not going to be
possible to conduct this inquiry “under the radar;” the ethics approval process would
require me to move it through the proper channels. My external reader, a seasoned
Jungian organizational consultant, encouraged me early on to engage OPHD leadership—
especially those in a position to scuttle the project—and rally as much support as I could
within the organization. So I plucked up my courage and began pitching the project
individually to key leaders, starting with my manager and working up the hierarchy. I
received valuable feedback through this process, which helped to clarify what
methodology would be most feasible and most likely to provide reliable data. A
conversation with the State Health Officer resulted in the decision to conduct information
sessions for participants and include the perspective of former employees. When I
submitted my proposal for the scrutiny of the OPHD Science and Epidemiology Council,
some researchers were intrigued and highly supportive and others expressed bafflement
at my proposed methodology and data sources. The official project review was a long
hour of discussion punctuated by many probing questions, a few confused shrugs, and a
critical comment by one epidemiologist colleague that “this all just seems
so…subjective!” However, the group gave the project their blessing, determined that the
project fit the criteria of an organization-level evaluation project, and waived the full
Institutional Review Board process. Following an individual meeting with the OPHD
director, I approached the Executive Leadership Team for final approval. Not only did
they support the proposal, but they expressed interest in the results and agreed that
employees could participate in focus groups on work time with a manager’s approval.
Although my dissertation journey has felt at times like a risky “coming out” as a
depth psychologist within an organization steeped in reductionistic thinking, it has proven
to be transformative. Not only has it established me as a legitimate researcher in the eyes
of my professional colleagues, but it also positioned me as a trusted ally of high-level
organizational leadership who uses a valuable and unusual lens to examine organizational
truths. It also began my initiation into an informal but highly supportive brother- and
sisterhood of doctoral-level peers.
The process of conducting this inquiry has also been a personal transformation.
My self-image has morphed from that of a middle manager who held unexpressed,
subversive, archetypally informed opinions to that of an empowered and self-confident
advocate for an archetypal perspective who promotes the legitimacy of unconventional
data sources and champions multiple ways of knowing. Since I conducted the focus
groups, colleagues at multiple levels of the organization have inquired about my
progress; numerous spontaneous hallway and break room conversations have led to
unexpected insights and the sharing of valuable resources for interpreting the results. I
have also heard more conversations about the value of qualitative data for understanding
the nuances of public health issues at the community level.
This transformation in my professional identity has paralleled the somatic
transformation of perimenopause and the integration of personal shadow material that
Jung described as the major task of the second half of life (1933/1959, pp. 5134-5144).
The intensity of this transformation is apparent in the alchemical imagery I discussed in
the previous chapter. Since beginning my study at Pacifica, I have consciously striven to
understand and integrate material that first erupted into my conscious experience during
my first term of doctoral study as the image of Medusa. This powerful archetypal
influence became the subject of a highly psychoactive paper I wrote about the
juxtaposition of opposites—power and disempowerment; anger and love; mind/body
connection and disconnection—in this ancient feminine image:
My recent interactions with Medusa’s image echoed the opposites that she
juxtaposes so forcefully; for the few months she was active in my conscious
psyche, I underwent both profound disruption and profound personal growth.
Although the experience caused deep psychological pain and wreaked havoc on
my relationships with loved ones (including my own fragile and carefully-crafted
persona), it also brought many gifts of insight and growth. One of the most
intriguing outcomes of the process was an understanding that Medusa, a powerful

image in her own right, also carries many attributes of the wounded healer
archetype. (Chisholm, 2013, p. 1)
Medusa’s reappearance within the data I collected for this inquiry was a meaningful
synchronicity that brought mythological depth to the seeing through process. I further
investigate the meaning of this manifestation in the Psychologizing and Mythologizing
section below.
Personal archetypal analysis. To enhance transparency regarding the archetypes
active and in shadow within my individual psyche and how they may have affected this
inquiry, I self-administered the Pearson Marr Archetype Indicator™ inventory (Pearson
& Marr, 2003) before and after conducting this inquiry. Detailed results are available in
Appendix D. I also gauged my personal perceptions of the archetypal influence patterns
within OPHD by taking the Organizational and Team Culture Indicator™ (Pearson,
2003) at the same time points. I have shared detailed findings in Appendix E. While my
pre-research assessment of OPHD’s dominant and shadow archetypal influences via the
OTCI™ was remarkably congruent with the results of the organizational analysis, most
of the dominant archetypes in my personal inventory (Jester, Lover, Creator, Magician,
and Caregiver) were those this inquiry identified as shadow archetypes within OPHD.
Given the discrepancy between my personal archetypal influences and those of
my workplace, conducting this inquiry has required me to further integrate a number of
the archetypal influences that had not been strongly expressed in my professional role
prior to my work on this dissertation. Although the Lover’s relationally based
perspective represents a natural tendency that I am able to integrate fluidly into my life
outside of work, I had never felt comfortable openly embracing it in my professional life
due to the strongly thinking-dominated perspective of my workplace. However, I have
recently found my tendency to lead with relationship to be a distinct advantage in my
new role as a manager. The Lover archetype has also strongly informed my leadership
style in an innovative communications project that requires deep listening in communities
experiencing health disparities and relies heavily upon the ability to develop trusting,
reciprocal relationships based on a strong foundation of equalized power.
Conversely, as someone who prefers to work quietly and thoughtfully toward
incremental change from within existing power structures, I had never considered myself
to be much of an activist. In my role as a researcher, however, I have found a stronger
voice and developed an “ask forgiveness rather than permission” attitude in my
leadership style that I associate with increasing influence of the Revolutionary archetype.
My findings have identified the need for OPHD to commit to profound transformational
change, and through the information sessions and focus groups I have tapped into an
unexpected underground network of archetypal activists at my workplace, others who
share an interest in using symbol, metaphor, and narrative to fundamentally change the
way we approach our work together. Similarly, although I had previously not been a
particularly bold speaker of truth to those in positions of power and authority within my
organization, participants in more than one focus group acknowledged that the truth-
telling role of the Jester is an important yet unexpected aspect of my insider researcher
role.
The wisdom of dream images. My conscious and unconscious experience of
planning, undertaking, and coalescing the results of this inquiry has been quite intense.
Since its dramatic arrival in my body more than 26 months ago I have felt my attention
and energy drawn by a constant, almost parasitic presence that has developed a deep hold
on my physical, intellectual, and emotional being. An intense and somatic nighttime
dream, which arrived just a few weeks before I submitted my proposal draft for approval
in June of 2017, initiated this experience. I described this “first true nightmare for as
long as I remember” in my dream journal:
On the palm side of my [left] first finger…something has gotten under my
skin...little larvae that are hatching. They’re becoming worms and crawling…I’m
watching, horrified, as…they start spreading up my arm and then they’re over my
entire body. They get bigger and bigger, a couple of inches long…there are
hundreds, maybe thousands of them, mature worms…like leeches…I’m so
horrified and so disgusted. I have these worms squirming underneath my skin,
underneath my entire body. (Chisholm, 2018a)
In my dream journal I described the emotional intensity of this dream: “It’s so
disturbing…talk about revulsion and abjection! Ugh…something’s going on and it’s
big.” In retrospect, it seems hard to miss the implication in this dream that something
powerful and insidious—likely the highly psychoactive nature of the dissertation process
itself—had truly gotten under my skin. Another emotionally intense dream, which
involved a man shackled to dark rocks about to drown under a rising tide, echoed my
experience of feeling unable to escape an inexorable process.
However, a beautiful dream that arrived as I was finishing my concept paper in
June 2016 expressed a different aspect of this dynamic:
I’m in the cage of a Tyrannosaurus rex…I realize that I’ve caught its eye. I run
and hide in a little alcove. It sticks its head around a corner. It’s [a data analyst
colleague]….It’s like a dragon too, and I think that I can sing to it and distract it.
I sing a line of something to it and catch its attention. Then the scene shifts
and…we’re now outside the cage. (Chisholm, 2018a)
Although the imagery of this dream baffled me at the time, in retrospect I interpret it as a
prescient prediction about the process of using one’s true voice to metaphorically sing
away the walls of a cage—in this case, archetypal patterns limiting personal and
organizational growth—to achieve liberation.
Guidance from mandala images. In the final turn of the hermeneutic wheel of
interiorizing I reexamine the images that emerged through my mandala drawings
(Appendix F). When strung together using a narrative (mythologizing) frame informed
by Eck’s essay on circumambulation (2005, pp. 1795-1798) the images provide a means
to invoke and infer the mythological dreamtime that informed my unconscious process
from document analysis through focus group facilitation and final interpretation of
results:
Mandalas arrive from a place outside mapped location and time and present
themselves as circles. At first there is chaos, disorder; then eruptions and
emanations like Hephaistos’ volcanoes and fiery flowers coalesce into pinwheels
and spirals. Movement begins, first clockwise, sun-wise, as in Lakota, Hindu, and
Buddhist tradition, evoking ancestral memories of circumambulation of stupas
and sacred fires. Then small counterclockwise eddies begin to circulate. This
sense of opposing direction invokes the ancient tension of sinister widdershins
movement, rumored to be unlucky and associated with danger, magic, and
witches. But as with the Moslem Hajj and pre-Buddhist Bon-Po traditions, this
left-handed circling also tilts the heart toward the sacred center. This
anticlockwise movement runs against linear time, leading us toward the timeless
time of the ancestors. We pause there for a while, passing through the horns of
the moon, awed by the northern lights. Then, from the depths of their fire appears
a Lakota medicine wheel with two white panels—here there is a preponderance of
winter being-ness, which invokes the wisdom of the elders, the owl and all the
animal nations, and the spirit world. Now emerges a circled cross: the most
ancient of shamanic symbols of my Celtic ancestors (Pratt, 2007). Then in quick
succession appear a planet in turmoil (Jupiter the sanguine Ruler? Saturn/Chronos
the Father-Ruler who eats his own children?), a jellyfish (Linnaeus’ Medusa!), a
scarab (rebirth!), a butterfly (the psyche!), and a blossoming lotus (purity rooted
in mud!). Now a left-handed pinwheel and spiral appear, then a hurricane
emitting rainbow light, squared circles with central spirals, an ancestral shield
with a three-legged swastika, a purple heart radiating golden light, a square
keyhole leading inward to the center, and a nested cascade of geometric forms
that calls to mind Johannes Kepler’s music of the spheres. Then the progression
ends, still spiraling, now clockwise and open to the world outside of the circle, in
a pattern far more complex than any that came before. (Chisholm, 2018b)
This more poetic and metaphorical interpretation of the mandala images suggests to me a
mythological progression from the primordial chaos brought us the angry eruptions of
Medusa, who then evolved into a Pacific Northwest native portrait of Grandmother
Moon. I will elaborate further on the meaning of some of the images that manifested
through my mandala drawings as we turn next to the process of psychologizing.

Psychologizing and Mythologizing
And now, through Hillman’s process of psychologizing, we turn back to the
organization itself, as reflected in its written public expression and the verbal storytelling
of a few of its constituent parts. We aim to dig more deeply into the organizational data
in an attempt to describe what may be happening under the surface of the OPHD persona.
I interpret the data by “appealing to an ultimate hidden value…concealed in the
depths…the deus absconditus in the results” (p. 140). We seek to answer questions such
as, which gods and goddesses are at work within this process of change, and what
unexamined stories of transformation are playing out under the surface?
In this process, through analysis of symptom via hint, metaphor, and story we
seek to see and know that which exerts influence from behind the façade of the
organization, what truths and possibilities lie locked within the heartwood of the data. In
this process of psychologizing we seek a truer, more real, more powerful, and hopefully
more valuable interpretation of the players on the stage of OPHD’s polytheistic psyche.
My guideposts for this process are examination of metaphor, deconstruction of verbal and
nonverbal hints at shadow material, and awareness of potential alchemical symbolism
within the data. I simultaneously employ the process of mythologizing to further deepen
the meaning and resonance of the seeing through process by situating these archetypal
players within their own stories.
Starting with the opening question Aizenstat (2011, p. 33) recommends when
hosting dream images, I begin with the inquiry “Who is visiting now?” Let us first
examine the triumvirate of Hero, Ruler, and Sage that feature so prominently in the
OPHD organizational psyche, and then consider the absent Jester.

Balancing the Warrior/Hero with relationship. In addition to the
understanding of OPHD’s Hero archetype provided by the document analysis and focus
group discussions, we may further characterize its expression by means of metaphors that
surfaced in the focus groups. Participants invoked the warrior aspect of this archetype by
means of references to targets, “hard-hitting messages” and warnings, “multi-pronged
strategies,” and “bold vision.” Several navigational metaphors in the documents evoke a
goal oriented organizational Warrior/Hero’s journey that “must not lose sight on” long-
term equity initiatives and follows a well-marked “roadmap for modernization” set forth
by the modernization documents. The documents evoke a journey image with
metaphorical references such as “lay the path forward,” and “follow in our path,” as well
as a chapter titled “The Road Ahead.” Several vivid physical images of the natural
environment—including references food deserts, upstream, changing the landscape, and
landing place—enrich the description.
These metaphors mirror the extraverted hero image that Bellavita (1991)
described as common within public sector leadership. They also echo Stivers’ (2002)
discussion of modern masculine “leader as hero” mythology that characterizes the heroic
organizational leader as an entrepreneur, “someone who is rational and egotistical” and
driven to “found a private kingdom…and prove oneself superior,” a leader “motivated by
creativity, accomplishment, and ingenuity” (p. 60). A poignant example of this shadow
aspect of the Hero appeared in one of the focus groups, when laughter accompanied a
perky cheerleader imitation that described the agency’s strong focus on achievement via
setting and accomplishing goals: “We’re going to implement! All right! Like “I-M-P-L-
E-M-E-N-T, let’s implement!” This statement about the action-oriented manifestation of

the archetypal Hero within OPHD’s organizational psyche implied a sense of change
fatigue among employees.
Using Hillman’s psychologizing process to see more deeply into the Hero
archetype as it presents in this inquiry uncovers a possible savior complex within the
organization. Given that the sickness plaguing the OPHD archetypal Hero’s kingdom is
health inequity, the agency’s leaders would be wise to consider whether heroic leadership
is what Oregon needs. Hillman himself noted that the heroic model of improvement is
predicated on competition for scarcity of resources (1995, p. 28), and this dynamic seems
antithetical to OPHD’s stated goals. Viewing the represented employee focus group’s
discussion of the Hero through the lens of psychologizing also brings up an
uncomfortable question: is this Hero an unconscious colonizer? Many people in
Oregon’s communities that bear a disproportionate burden of inequity have experienced
institutionalized racism, systematic oppression, and—in the case of Native
communities—genocide at the hands of government. From this perspective, a white male
majority version of the Hero is more likely to appear as an uninvited oppressor than as a
welcomed liberator. Seeing through identifies the Hero of the majority as a hero that
fights inequity using the same extraverted and self-guided language and means as historic
oppressors. In the shadow of the Gold Rush lurks Cortez the Killer; behind the heroic
myth of the Oregon Trail lurks the trauma of Oregon’s own Trail of Tears; in the shadow
of heroic public health lurks the horrific legacy of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment.
From another perspective, perhaps the extraverted nature of the OPHD archetypal
Hero represents compensation for its inconsistently risk averse nature that surfaced in
focus group discussions? Perhaps the inequities that trouble Oregon’s communities, “a
public sector where crops are not growing. Babies are not being born. Sickness,
alienation, and despair are rampant” (Bellavita, 1991, p. 184) represent a failure of the
Hero. As one focus group participant pointed out, “by not taking risks you can’t fix the
big issues.” Another participant’s invocation of Don Quixote (Cervantes Saavedra, 1986)
implies the potential for the agency’s archetypal Hero to tend toward delusion and
fecklessness.
Where might OPHD leaders find a potential antidote to this white majority, male,
and possibly emasculated heroic leadership model? There probably no easy answers, for
as Hillman noted, “the most difficult of all tasks for heroic consciousness is looking
inward into its own drive, the myth that propels it toward its cruel end” (1995, p. 31).
However, we may look to Neumann’s observations about the psychological function of
the Hero myth for guidance. As he noted, archetypal “Leader and Great Individual”
figures represent projections of the collective unconscious (1949/2007, p. 434). As is the
case with individual projections, an organization that comes to understand its own
shadow through self-inquiry may eventually be able to withdraw such a projection in
favor of a more consciously created model of leadership. OPHD may also take
instruction from Neumann’s observation that while the “Great Individual” leader
archetype—which has much in common with OPHD’s extraverted Hero—is very
important to individual development, this monolithic archetype is also an atavistic
reflection of a previous age. OPHD may compound its own antidote by cultivating an
introverted Hero image, “the genius, the Great Individual who is leader and hero in an
‘inner’ sense” (p. 434). The introverted inner-Hero, an image of leadership that becomes
“submerged and repressed into the organizational shadow of the organization where the
extraverted hero is the leadership norm…is ‘gold’ available to the hero organization bent
on change” (John Corlett, personal communication, March 2018). Translated into
practical language, this theorizing suggests that OPHD leaders should consider how
archetypes in the organizational shadow—especially the Lover—could broaden the
agency’s set of perspectives, tools, and resources to address the intractable issue of
inequity.
OPHD might aspire to manifest a Lover-inspired Hero focused on relationship
rather than achievement. Cast from a different mold, this hero image would be motivated
by communitas (Turner, 2017), which Edwards (1984) described as a form of love
“neither romantic nor sexual. A social rather than a private impulse, it…brings about a
change from…an expression of love freely given between individuals loosed from
socially…imposed constraints” (p. 13). Current and aspiring leaders might also shift
away from their tendency to look upward in the organizational hierarchy for role models.
Fisher (1988) and Stivers (2002) call for agencies like OPHD to equalize the power
imbalance inherent in “building a hero factory” of organizational leaders. Instead, they
recommend developing leadership by “looking across, by listening, and by revealing
ourselves to one another” (p. 102), by discovering new perspectives through narrative-
based exploration (Fisher, 1988) and by “building solidarity among people with similar
aims, wherever we find them” (Stivers, 2002, p. 106). This implies an opportunity to
lead by means of the Lover’s innate tendency to co-create via power-equalized
relationships. Additionally, in the process of self-examination, OPHD’s archetypal Hero
can seek support and inspiration from the archetypes with whom it shares the Results
quadrant within the Archetype of Organization. The Revolutionary can assist in tearing
down old, outdated structures and ways of thinking and the Magician’s influence can
usher in a process of truly transformative change.
The trauma of the Ruler and the ruled. As we turn the hermeneutic wheel
downward toward the Stabilizing quadrant of the Archetype of Organization mandala, we
encounter structural images within the modernization documents that evoke the Ruler and
organizational stabilizing forces. These include references to a “framework for
modernization,” “foundational capabilities,” and Thomas Frieden’s health pyramid
(2010). Also in the documents are metaphorical images of building and words that
describe the tools and forces that the Creator harnesses to bring forth new structures:
leveraging funding, building upon existing opportunities, and using the State Health
Improvement Plan (Oregon Public Health Division, 2015) as a tool for future
development.
Instances of nervous laughter that arose within focus groups following some
statements about the manifestation of the OPHD archetypal Ruler may indicate the
existence of personal or organizational complexes; certain aspects of self-disclosure
regarding this archetype did not appear to sit easily. Laughter followed several
statements about shadow aspects of OPHD’s Ruler archetype manifestation. These
included the remarks about the challenge of modernizing a “very messy and complicated
and not functional” statewide public health system; a statement that “there is really no
room for” employees who strongly manifest archetypal Revolutionary, Lover, or Creator
tendencies within the Ruler’s rigid structure and how “if they [Revolutionaries] come
their soul is sucked out and they leave”; and a remark that disparities and care “look more
like threats to the [OPHD] power structure than having a winning team.” A joke an
executive made about renaming their weekly team session the “Tuesday Morning
Organizational Ego Meeting” may also reflect discomfort with the process of self-
examination. This group’s brief and cursory discussion of the Ruler archetype appears to
corroborate this finding. An off-the-cuff remark from one participant expressing the
temptation to take an “off with their heads” approach with external partners—which was
followed by the statement “We’ve got too much of the Red Queen in us!”—generated
strong laughter.
In addition to this direct reference to the Queen of Hearts pronouncing her fatal
sentence in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (2014), several other
metaphors that surfaced in the focus groups invoked metaphorical decapitation or
dismemberment. Participants in all four groups used similar somatic language,
describing how “you get your head cut off” for playing the truth-speaking role of Jester,
making a reference to the former OHA director’s desire to “cut off the fat,” and using the
metaphor that she would “whack somebody on the head” to describe layoffs. These
expressions of concern invoke an arbitrarily autocratic feminine Ruler archetype that
manifests aspects of the archetypal Caregiver’s shadow, including tendencies toward
anger and harsh punishment of those beneath her in the hierarchy. Another somatic
workplace image invoked in a focus group described an employee embodying the
Revolutionary archetype as eventually one whose “soul is sucked out” by prolonged work
in the agency. Another participant described the results-oriented OHA as “an
organization that is…consuming the people and spitting out the results.” This violent
verbal imagery metaphorically invokes the experience of those ruled over being devoured
by a greater power. The Titan Kronos eating and regurgitating his children provides a
potent mythological reflection of this shadow aspect of the Ruler, which Bolen has
interpreted as representing the desire to prevent challenges to authority (1989, p. 21).
Hillman’s processes of psychologizing and pathologizing enable us to interpret
the function of Kronos and the Queen of Hearts within OPHD’s organizational psyche
from the perspective of trauma. Kalsched (2013) noted that following repeated trauma,
benevolent images that originally functioned as protectors may turn upon the fragile
individual ego in a similar way:
As the mystical, mytho-poetic life of the trauma survivor unfolds, the benevolent
spiritual presences that seem to have saved their souls begin to lose their
protective power…these inner objects often turn malevolent. Inner protectors
turn into persecutors…and the “better angels of our nature” are displaced by the
demons of dismemberment, disembodiment, psychic deadening, and primitive
defense…a mysticism but one of violence…and loss-of-soul. (p. 3)
When we apply Kalsched’s theory to OPHD’s organizational psyche, the manifestation of
the Queen of Hearts and Kronos as images within the focus groups implies the presence
of unhealed organizational trauma, a legacy of past patterns of authoritarian leadership,
and fear of arbitrary punishment among those lower in the organizational hierarchy.
In addition to the Queen of Hearts, the pervasive decapitation metaphor also
invokes the more ancient image of Medusa, an initially innocent and beautiful maiden
turned hideous by the jealous whim of a goddess. As Root (2007) has noted, “the
archetypal horrific aspect of Medusa presents onion-like layers far too complex to
dismiss at skin-level” (p. 27). When we see through the terrifying Gorgon to consider
Medusa’s backstory, we discover that her decapitation symbolically represents a deep

psychological wound associated with betrayal and victimization by authority. Ironically,
Athena perpetrated the violence that turned Medusa into the Gorgon. Wise, clear-eyed
Athena, favored daughter of Zeus, sprang fully formed from her father’s forehead to
become the benevolent protector of the polis, a supporter of male heroes, and a female
enforcer of patriarchy (Bolen, 1984, p. 75-84). The violence done to Medusa—first
directly through Athena’s Gorgon curse and then through the hero Perseus who chopped
off her head—implies historical cycles of violence perpetrated upon women within a
patriarchal system. Neumann (1949/2007) echoes this perspective when he describes this
motif as “the myth of the hero who conquers the symbol of matriarchal domination in the
Libyan Gorgon” (p. 82). In the case of OPHD, OHA director Lynne Saxton symbolically
“whacked people on the head” in the agency via layoffs but then found her head on the
professional chopping block as well. Saxton tendered her resignation to Governor Kate
Brown, who as Oregon’s former Secretary of State became governor following the
resignation of Governor John Kitzhaber following a scandal involving his fiancée.
Thus, mythologizing enables us to identify cycles of trauma that extend to the
highest level of state government in Oregon. Perhaps this cycle extends even further,
manifesting even more broadly on a national scale in the form of President Trump’s
autocratic and arbitrary leadership style (Landler & Haberman, 2018) as reflected in the
dozens of resignations within the highest level of the federal government during his
tenure in the White House. It also may extend to the ancestral level; a dream of
unremembered trauma that I discuss in detail below echoes the genocidal violence
perpetrated upon the native people who are the original inhabitants of Oregon, and the
keepers of a pre-colonial public health system that centered upon shamanic healing and
profound connection to the natural and invisible spirit worlds.
It is tempting to point an accusing finger at individual leaders who embody the
archetypal Ruler’s shadow qualities. However, while they are individually accountable
for their tendencies and actions, they are also caught up within a larger archetypal pattern,
a cycle of victimization and perpetration of trauma that transcends the personal. While
the negative effect of this archetypal pattern feels very personal to many, as individuals
we are part of an unconscious drama that would continue to play itself out in the same
pattern with different cast members. If individual egos do not pay conscious attention to
understanding archetypal influences and put conscious effort into mitigating their effects,
they will remain in thrall to these larger forces.
In addition to simply becoming aware of and acknowledging this pattern within
the OPHD organizational psyche, enhancing the influence of the positive polarity of the
archetypal Ruler would also help to balance this shadow Ruler. Given that the striking
similarity between the shadow Ruler and shadow Caregiver word clouds generated from
the document analysis (Appendix C), enhancing the Caregiver’s positive archetypal
expression would also be likely to support more benevolent stabilizing forces within the
Archetype of Organization.
Analysis of metaphor within the modernization documents does include some
positive Caregiver imagery that can serve as a base for the agency to build upon. The
stabilizing and structuring metaphors associated with the Ruler that are discussed above
are balanced by several evocations of the Caregiver. These include a patchwork quilt
metaphor that describes distribution of foundational capacity across county public health
systems; a quote in a case study that describes a table set with an abundance of funding
(Public Health Accreditation Board, n.d.); many references to reducing the burden of
disparity, inequity, morbidity, and mortality; and literal and figurative descriptions of the
agency’s investment in future health. Supporting literal expression of “the qualities
frequently associated with women, such as intuition and nurturance” (Stivers, 2002, p.
72) at all levels of the organization would help to build a stronger positive Caregiver
archetype within OPHD. Based on focus group discussions, public health nurses may be
a helpful group in this process. An additional opportunity would involve a deliberate and
conscious shift of focus from heroic, goal-oriented leadership that tackles problems and
vanquishes inequity toward a model that involves co-creation and engages leaders as
“midwives of change” (Morgan & Kass, 1991, p. 52). Drawing upon the relational
aspects of the Lover and Caregiver archetypes by encouraging development of trustful,
reciprocal, and collaborative creative relationships in the workplace is likely to provide
an acceptable and digestible framing for this change process.
In addition to strengthening expression of the positive Caregiver, it would
behoove OPHD’s organizational leadership to consider and reorient the agency’s
relationship to the Innocent archetype. It is difficult to tell if the negative statements
employees made about this archetype in the focus groups arose from individual or
organizational complexes (or perhaps both). However, the statements—“I’m glad we
don’t have more of the Innocent,” “The Innocent is needy and stupid and needs
paternalism,” and “[the Innocent/Ruler dynamic] sounds like a cult”—were shared in two
different groups by three different participants, one by a manager and the others by
represented employees. This rejection of the Innocent archetype, accompanied by its
standing as the third least commonly manifesting archetype in the document analysis,
indicates that these statements were likely to have been inspired by material in the
organizational shadow.
How could OPHD address its Innocent complex? Increased emphasis on co-
constructed structures and initiatives would help to equalize the power imbalance
inherent in the Ruler/Innocent relationship that OPHD shares with local public health
authorities and other external entities. One example of movement toward this archetypal
shift is a consultation agreement recently negotiated between OHA and Oregon’s
federally recognized tribes, which is intended to clarify communication expectations
between the tribes and agencies such as OPHD. Guided by this document, OPHD must
now act early to initiate discussion with tribes about any impending changes in public
health policy or funding that may affect tribal members. Deliberate nurturance of
opportunities for self-determination and independence among front-line employees and
middle management could also mitigate power imbalances internal to the agency.
Breaking down the ivory tower. The shadow side of OPHD’s archetypal Sage
is perhaps best described by a statement made by a former employee: “Maybe that’s
what’s coming out in this [analysis], our superiority. We are, a lot of us, Master’s level
and above, and we do think we know better.” The nervous laughter and general
agreement that followed this statement indicate this as an area of the agency’s
organizational psyche that might benefit from self-reflection. As described in Chapter 4,
the OPHD archetypal Sage manifested in the document analysis and focus group
discussions as an ivory-tower expert holding tightly to arcane knowledge, closed to what
it considers unscientific knowledge, and unable or unwilling to learn or accept other ways
of knowing as legitimate.
This archetypal pattern hearkens back to a myth about expertise providing
legitimacy in government that is firmly—and most likely unconsciously—grounded in
the psyche of the American public servant. This belief pattern, expressed in the writings
of Woodrow Wilson (1887), centers around the concept that “technically skilled civil
service” (p. 216) can withstand public criticism, which Wilson described as “a clumsy
nuisance, a rustic handling delicate machinery” (p. 215). As feminist public
administration theorist Camilla Stivers has noted, within Wilson’s myth of expert
governance “the need for expertise is a central tenet of modern public administration”
and the role of administrators is to “carry out legislative mandates by means of scientific
expertise, not to take sides on political questions” (2002, p. 7). This mythology appears
to have perpetuated an unconscious ivory tower norm at OPHD by which administrators
gain their legitimacy by being neutral, objective, and “removed from the hurry and strife
of politics…a part of political life only as the methods of the counting-house are part of
the life of society” (Wilson, 1887, pp. 209-210). Stivers described how this archetypal
manifestation reflects the masculinity of the OPHD Hero archetype’s expression. The
“cultural masculinity of this mode of knowing,” she wrote, “is implied by emphasis on
hard data (numbers) rather than soft data (experience, participant observation, interview)”
(2002, p. 44).
The specter of classism, apparent in Wilson’s comment about public opinion, also
appears as a shadow aspect of the expression of the Sage within the OPHD organizational
psyche. This attitude is rooted in modern mythology that dates back at least to the
writings of Frederick Taylor (2002), who believed that a hierarchy that elevates thinkers
or experts above doers creates efficiency. As Stivers (2002) pointed out, the unequal
balance of power within this system sets the stage for communication and relationship
issues. She wrote:
The hierarchical character of professionalism blocks the potential for genuine
dialogue with citizens, [author’s emphasis] whose opinions can more easily be
discounted or dismissed because they are not considered expert…[from this
perspective] the best citizen is one who is decorative rather than substantive and
who understands the citizen role as follower, supporter, and ratifier rather than as
co-equal. (p. 53)
Here, the paternalism inherent in the manifestations of the OPHD archetypal Hero and
Ruler has surfaced again in the form of the Sage. The antidote, from Stivers’ point of
view, is a return to Progressive era values, an “understanding of science…centered not
around objectivity and rigor but around connectedness” (Stivers, 2002, p. 133).
The values inherent in the Everyperson archetype may prove a valuable foil for
this shadow Sage tendency within state government. By de-emphasizing the role of
organizational experts and instead nurturing a “citizen-administrator” role (Stivers,
2002), OPHD could recreate itself as less of a lofty ivory tower and more of a
partnership, where “energy in the model runs horizontally rather than vertically” (p. 103).
Administrators might ponder creative answers to Stivers’ incisive question about radical
power sharing: “Could we make room…for an image of administrative leadership that
includes facilitating a share in organizational decision making for agency clients, for
citizens, and for secretaries and clerks?” (p. 137). Given the strong congruence between
the Everyperson values of social justice and equity and guiding values held by many
working in public health professions, nurturing these tendencies could help to create a
stronger connection between OPHD employees and their professional roles.
An agency that embraces these values, however, may threaten its own core
identity when it changes the status quo by relinquishing some of its power for self-
determination and autonomy. As Stivers noted, “lowering barriers to people who were
previously discriminated against means having to lower barriers to the possibility that
their ideas will result in real changes in business as usual” (2002, p. 133). However, she
also hints at a Magician-inspired ability to connect across historical divides that manifests
when “the administrator-as-citizen sees herself or himself as…one who occupies a
location in the web of government that gives…not only access to sharable information
but also a boundary-spanning capacity, both of which can be used to empower others” (p.
138).
An example of movement toward this archetypal shift is already apparent in
OPHD’s establishment of a more community-oriented input process to inform the
development of the 2020-2025 State Health Improvement Plan (SHIP). Instead of
repeating the largely internal process that culminated in the current SHIP, OPHD is
convening a broader advisory group that includes community representatives—cleverly
named the PartnerSHIP—to steer the development process. The OPHD Director’s Office
has also announced the availability of mini-grants to fund local, culturally responsive
organizations to solicit feedback from communities most affected by health disparities
about which state health priorities the new SHIP should focus upon. In addition to this
initiative from the director’s office, several other sections of OPHD are conducting
community engagement processes to inform their work and strengthen their partnerships.
Making a place for the Jester in the Ruler’s court. We now turn the
hermeneutic wheel toward the People quadrant of the Archetype of Organization mandala
and contemplate the function of the Jester archetype within OPHD’s organizational
psyche. Here I will use the process of mythologizing to elaborate upon two themes that
emerged from the focus group discussions: OPHD’s opportunity to support the Dionysian
Jester as an archetypal foil for the Hero, and its opportunity to encourage manifestation of
the Hermetic Jester/Fool as a foil for the Ruler.
As the least commonly represented archetype within the document review
findings, it is likely that the OPHD archetypal Jester lies in the agency’s psychological
shadowlands. According to Pearson and Marr (2003, p. 32) very low PMAI™ scores for
a particular archetypal field tend to indicate disowned or actively discarded personal
characteristics; the same may be said for an organization. The relative absence of the
Jester within the OPHD organizational psyche was also the subject of lengthy discussions
in focus groups; given these trends it is safe to assume that this indicates a shadow
archetype.
The foil for the Jester, OPHD’s archetypal Hero, appears to be Apollonian in
aspect: “He signifies measure, number, limitation, and subjugation of everything wild and
untamed” (Jung, 1971, p. 138). This Hero’s relentless focus on results comes at the
expense of physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing. Exhaustion can quickly ensue.
It follows then that the archetypal Jester’s “Dionysian impulse…[which] means the
liberation of unbounded instinct, the breaking loose of the unbridled dynamism of animal
and divine nature” (p. 138) can assist those in the thrall of the Hero’s achievement mania.
The Dionysian aspect of the archetypal Jester encourages employees to adopt a lighter,
more playful attitude as a counter to OPHD’s Sage/Hero/Ruler tendency to be overly
literal, serious, and goal oriented. This aspect also provides permission to heed and
respond to the needs of their bodies, spirits, and souls through enjoyment, relaxation, and
connection to the natural world.
The innovative spirit of the Dionysian Jester connected with a willingness to
break rules is, of course, inherently problematic within OPHD, especially given the need
for accountability and fulfillment of statutory requirements and administrative rules.
However, there are plenty of antidotes that can fit within the necessary structures: some
possibilities include encouragement and modeling of self-care by leaders (sometimes this
is as simple as regularly taking breaks!); increased support for family-friendly policies
such as telecommuting, flexible schedules, and availability of part-time work; and
holding creative brainstorming sessions in addition to structured meeting time.
Indeed, not taking one’s work—or one’s self—too seriously could provide a
useful means of breaking down the ivory tower, as well as a foil for both the emotionally
challenging work of public health. Humor is a useful means of rallying support and
energy in the field’s never-ending quest to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles
and solve intractable issues. Fortunately, several theatrical metaphors that surfaced in the
document analysis—including expressions such as “take the lead,” “play a critical role,”
and “have a role to play”—suggest that the Dionysian aspect of OPHD’s organizational
psyche is not entirely absent. Indeed, in my personal experience improvements are
already apparent. The Portland State Office Building Wellness Center provides
opportunities for self-care during the work day in the form of space to work out, lunch-
hour yoga classes, a lactation room, and on-site self-paid chair massage. Walking
meetings, which take small groups of employees outside to discuss business on the move,
are becoming more common. Opportunities for flexible work hours and telework are
increasing, and a newly chartered Healthy Families Employee Resource Group is also
emerging as a champion for family-friendly policies.
In addition to finding a place for the earthy Dionysian Jester within the OPHD
organizational psyche, welcoming in the airy Hermetic Jester holds promise as a means to
balance the strength of the archetypal Ruler and the weight of its stabilizing influences.
As the ancient Greek god of communication and invention (Bolen, 1989, p. 166), Hermes
supports the speaking of truth and the acquisition of self-knowledge, honesty, and
adaptability. Hermes’ ability to be at home in multiple worlds helps an organization
break down internal hierarchical boundaries, as well as boundaries between OPHD and
the people it serves. The Hermetic Jester helps to equalize power structures by
metaphorically dethroning the Ruler. As Pearson pointed out in Awakening the Heroes
Within (1991):
Fools have a license to say what other people would be hanged for, to puncture
the Ruler’s Ego when the Ruler is in danger of hubris, and generally provide
balance to the kingdom by breaking the rules and thereby allowing an outlet for
forbidden insights, behaviors, and feelings. (p. 220)
A poignant mythological example of this Hermetic Jester archetype is the character of the
Fool in King Lear (Shakespeare, 1942). According to Ghose (2008), “the Fool serves the
function of destabilising [sic] Lear’s world view and thus precipitating a process of self-
knowledge” (p. 191). He accomplishes this by asking, “who is the real fool?” (p. 173).
By holding up a mirror to the King, “the Fool’s task was to open Lear’s eyes” (p. 190).
The archetypal Hermetic Jester influence could serve a similar function within OPHD by
providing helpful reflections upon progress with modernization, as well as upon progress
with integrating the Jester and other less well represented archetypal influences within the
organizational ego.
Increased expression is apparent in this archetypal field as well. OPHD
leadership has begun to communicate frequently with employees regarding agency-level
responses to employee feedback provided by the annual engagement survey; in response
to survey results, executive leaders have strongly encouraged managers to increase the
quality and frequency of performance feedback sessions and co-create development plans
with the employees they supervise. OPHD has also increased its investment in employee
development by establishing a full-time position in the director’s office dedicated to
enhancing and coordinating on-the-job training opportunities. OHA’s new director has
held several informal “town hall” meetings with employees at OPHD to answer questions
and solicit feedback, and both the OHA and OPHD division directors now hold regular
office hours that are open to employees at all levels. The results of this inquiry also hold
promise for encouraging enhanced expression of the Hermetic Jester archetype; I am
hopeful that by sharing and discussing findings of the archetypal assessment with the
Executive Leadership Team I can encourage further dialogue about how to support
enhanced communication at all levels of the organization, especially regarding
challenging topics.
A Return to Ideas
We come now to the close of the hermeneutic circle and the end of this journey of
inquiry. I have answered the research questions using standard techniques as well as
Hillman’s processes of seeing through, and described the potential application of the
results toward the ultimate goal of fostering integration of OPHD’s shadow material and
enhancing organizational wholeness. Through mythologizing, we have identified Apollo,
Athena, Medusa, and Kronos as lead players within the polytheistic psyche of OPHD,
and Hermes and Dionysus as gods that we may wish to welcome into the pantheon. The
manifestation of the related images of the crossed circle and medicine wheel have
enriched this process; these potent symbols appear to represent the transcendent third that
arises through the individuation process of coniunctio (Jung, 1954/2014a, pp. 275-289).
In addition to deeply informing this inquiry, these images have emerged as guidance for
my own journey toward individuation.
We have explored how the findings of this inquiry resonate on the individual,
organizational, and cultural level. Let us now explore their resonance in the ancestral
sphere. My understanding of this aspect of my findings began with a nighttime dream
that arrived in early June 2018 as I was writing up the final results:
I am driving a car out of control and have just awoken from a dissociative fugue
state. I know that I have experienced, witnessed, or perpetrated something
terrible but I do not consciously remember what. I am confused and disoriented,
and I do not know how to, or even want to, access the memories. I find myself
trapped by walls on three sides, and the only way out is to back up the way I came
in. Two helping figures, male and female, arrive to support me. They know what
happened to me, but I am so traumatized that I do not even want to ask.
(Chisholm, 2018a)
Three days after this dream arrived, I attended the Oregon Tribal Summit on Opioids and
Other Drugs on the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs Reservation. The first speaker
at that meeting (Coyhis, 2018) used a medicine wheel image to describe a process by
which native people and non-native allies are awakening from decades of dissociation
following the trauma of genocide to become activists who inspire others to overcome
cycles of self-violence and addiction. He described the first stage in the process as a
confused awakening, an emotionally and somatically felt sense of having heard a call but
not understanding its meaning. While listening to his presentation I remembered the
dream of waking from traumatic dissociation, as well as a dream that had come two
months earlier: in this dream I awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of someone
calling my name. “Laura!” was all the voice said, and I knew the voice that called me
was my own.
While the meaning of these dreams is still unfolding, their synchronistic
connection to the individual, cultural, and ancestral levels of trauma represented in this
inquiry seems quite clear. The image of the medicine wheel, the connection between
trauma and psychic dismemberment, and my embodied sense of knowing are threads that
connect my inquiry with something much larger and much deeper than my original
intention of analyzing organizational archetypes. While a thorough analysis of this
aspect of my findings is outside the scope of this inquiry, it is certainly a subject for
future contemplation and study. Equally important and compelling is the need for inquiry
into the colonization of public health in Oregon. Prior to this inquiry, I had always
considered myself a representative of the legitimate authority on public health in the
state. It had never occurred to me to ask what type of system was here before the
European colonizers arrived. Although my ancestral roots are not here in Oregon, I feel a
strong responsibility to answer this call.
Implications
This inquiry has demonstrated that archetypal analysis can provide a valuable and
unusual perspective on an agency, a nuanced opportunity for an organization to “know
thyself” that is simply not available by means of conventional public health program
evaluations or assessments. Findings that answer the first research question provide
insight into what archetypes are active and in shadow within OPHD’s organizational
psyche. Results of the inquiry also describe how the flavors of archetypal expression in
the organizational persona may be consciously or unconsciously perceived by key
stakeholders, including legislators, community-based organizations, county health
authorities, sovereign tribal governments, and members of the public. Findings related to
the second research question—the specific organizational recommendations outlined in
Chapter 4—provide nuanced opportunities for archetypally informed self-reflection at all
levels in the agency, and also provide specific guidance to inform leaders’ decisions
about how to most effectively and sensitively engage in the continuing process of public
health system modernization. The long-term impact of this analysis, however, will
depend upon the researcher’s continued commitment to translating this inquiry’s depth
psychological findings into digestible and actionable recommendations and upon the
willingness of agency leaders to enter a sustained engagement with the findings.
Given OPHD’s strong influence upon the health and wellbeing of people in
Oregon, the results of this future inquiry could benefit Oregonians in ways not yet known
or even imagined. The dream of the Tyrannosaurus rex serves as a reminder that by
using an archetypal voice it is possible to sing away the bars of the cages that imprison
us. The dream of waking up after trauma provides inspiration to shake off the
comfortable ignorance of dissociation and take action to consciously interrupt centuries-
old cycles of violence and oppression. The findings of this inquiry imply that by literally
losing our heads like the unfortunate Medusa, it is possible to transcend the limitations of
positivist inquiry and benefit from the deep and subtle knowledge imparted by emotional
and somatic wisdom and intuition. It is in dismemberment and relinquishment of the
known that we truly begin our journey on the path to wholeness, both as individuals and
as organizations. Both I and the agency I work in may continue to draw upon archetypal
guidance on our continuing journey down the long path toward self-knowledge.
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Appendix A. List of Analyzed Texts
Title of Text Author

OPHD website main page content OHA/PHD
OPHD modernization website PHD/OSPHD
Public Health Modernization Manual OHA/PHD
Berk Consulting, PHAB,

Modernization Assessment Report
OHA/PHD, JLT, CLHO
PH Modernization Plan & Fact Sheet OHA/PHD
Report to Legislative Fiscal Office OHA/PHD
Health & Economic Benefits of PH

OHA/PHD
Modernization
Overview: Modernization of Oregon’s Public

PHD/OSPHD
Health System
Legislative Briefing on Modernization OHA/PHD, Berk Consulting, PHAB
Case Study: Modernizing the Public Health

PHNCI
System in Oregon
Case Study: Communicable Disease PHD/OSPHD
Case Study: Emergency Preparedness OHA
Case Study: Environmental Public Health OHA
Case Study: Obesity OHA/PHD
Case Study: Tobacco OHA/PHD
State Health Improvement Plan OHA/PHD
State Health Improvement Plan Summary OHA/PHD
State Health Improvement Plan Fact Sheet OHA/PHD
State Health Assessment Overview PHD/OSPHD
OPHD Strategic Plan PHD

Title of Text Author

RFP 4461 Modernization Scope of Work PHD/OSPHD
Modernization Frequently Asked Questions PHD/OSPHD
Partnership Case Study Summary Report OHA/Rede Group
Acronyms:
CLHO – Council of Local Health Officials

JLT – Joint Leadership Team
OHA – Oregon Health Authority
OSPHD – Office of the State Public Health Director
PH – Public health
PHAB – Public Health Accreditation Board
PHD – Public Health Division
PHNCI - Public Health National Center for Innovations
Appendix B. Archetype Coding Matrix
Attribute Shadow Attribute

Archetype
Search Terms/Concepts1 Search Terms/Concepts
Abuse, neglect, aggression,

Accomplishment, achievement,
compassion, empathy,
courage, efficiency, goals,
Hero conflict, conquest,
implementation, improvement,
dependence, inequity,
planning, strength
martyrdom, peace,
manipulation
Accountability, stewardship, Abuse, neglect, colonization,

enforcement, fairness, condescension,
Ruler government, responsibility, empowerment, inequity,
authority, systems, process, order, non-conformism, radicalism,
leadership, structure oppression, compelling
Adaptability, confusion,
Academia, education, wisdom, enjoyment, pleasure, humor,
Sage mastery, learning, analysis, lightheartedness, ignorance,
assessment, data, knowledge intuition, non-conformism,
radicalism, pride, unaware
Fairness, practicality, human

rights, dignity, reciprocity, respect,
resilience, discipline, social Enforcement, compliance,
Everyperson justice, diversity, equity, access, inequity, requirement,
inclusiveness, belonging, cultural injustice
competency, practicality,
functionality, truth
1
The search terms in this coding guide represent attributes and shadow attributes of the 12
archetypes comprising Corlett and Pearson’s (2003) Archetype of Organization model.
Attributes and shadow attributes are based upon descriptions of these organizational
archetypes drawn from three source documents: Mapping the Organizational Psyche: A
Jungian Theory of Organizational Dynamics and Change (Corlett & Pearson, 2003),
Understanding Archetypes in Your Organization: An Introduction to the OTCI Basic
Report (Pearson, 2003), and The Hero and the Outlaw (Mark & Pearson, 2001). This
matrix also includes attributes added at the researcher’s discretion during the coding
process. These additions were intended to ensure that the analysis included frequently
occurring terms and concepts specific to the public health modernization process that
reflect key qualities of the 12 organizational archetypes (e.g., assessment, compliance).

Archetype
Assistance, care, generosity, help,

serve, support, nurture, creation of
safety, protection, responsibility, Enabling, abuse, neglect,
making a difference, compassion, codependence, guilt,
empathy, humility, trust, martyrdom, poor boundaries,
Caregiver
selflessness, sacrifice, giving, pushiness, manipulation,
generosity, charity, fine/penalize, abduction
responsiveness, empowerment,
technical assistance, equity,
provide, encourage, guide
Awareness, faith, history telling, Enforcement, compliance,

inspiration, intuition, measures, metrics, statistics,
Magician
transformation, modernization, epidemiology
ritual, transcendence
Dependence, enforcement,
Adaptability, adventure, compliance, monitoring,
authenticity, flexibility, oversight, order, structure,
Explorer
opportunity, freedom, exploration, framework, power, status,
entrepreneurialism authority
Appreciation, connection, Abuse, neglect,

communication, community, miscommunication,
engagement, harmony, intimacy, disconnection, inequity, poor
Lover unity, relationship, partnership, boundaries, pushiness,
teamwork, vulnerability, manipulation, sexually
consensus, facilitation, mutuality, transmitted diseases
passion, teamwork, trust
Abuse, neglect, academia,

enforcement, compliance,
Commitment, passion, eros, inequity, innocence,
liberation, overturning status quo, licensing, accreditation,
recklessness, vulnerability, non- certification, monitoring,
Revolutionary
conformism, pessimism, honesty, oversight, order, structure,
radical change, equalization of framework, risk, power,
power, risk taking status, authority, process,
procedure, system,
predictability, safety

Archetype
Curiosity, dependence, honesty, Abuse, neglect,

hope, faith, idealism, innocence, empowerment,
Innocent
loyalty, protection, safety, trust, independence, inequity,
vulnerability pessimism, poor boundaries,
risk
Discipline, persistence,
Creativity, expressiveness, struggle, enforcement,
Creator imagination, innovation, skill, compliance, fine, penalize,
vision, vocation, performance, licensing, accreditation,
efficiency, improvement, progress certification, monitoring,
oversight
Care, nurturing, sustaining,

Aliveness, vitality, authenticity, commitment, passion,
enjoyment, pleasure, imagination, discipline, persistence,
innovation, humor, light- struggle, enforcement,
Jester
heartedness, flexibility, play, compliance, faith, belief,
satire, incisive criticism, ability to monitoring, oversight, order,
speak truth to power structure, framework,
pessimism, safety,
predictability
Appendix C. Archetype Word Clouds
Figure C1. Hero Archetype Word Cloud
Figure C2. Hero Shadow Word Cloud

Figure C3. Magician Word Cloud
Figure C4. Revolutionary Word Cloud

Figure C5. Ruler Word Cloud
Figure C6. Ruler Shadow Word Cloud

Figure C7. Caregiver Word Cloud
Figure C8. Creator Word Cloud

Figure C9. Sage Word Cloud
Figure C10. Sage Shadow Word Cloud

Figure C11. Explorer Word Cloud
Figure C12. Innocent Word Cloud

Figure C13. Everyperson Word Cloud
Figure C14. Everyperson Shadow Word Cloud

Figure C15. Lover Word Cloud
Figure C16. Jester Word Cloud

Appendix D. Personal Archetypal Analysis
Prior to conducting this inquiry, I employed Pearson and Marr’s (2003)

individual archetypal inventory tool to cultivate awareness of the archetypal patterns
dominant within my own personal psyche. A self-administered Pearson-Marr Archetype
Indicator™ (Pearson & Marr, 2003) inventory conducted in September 2016 at the start
of my dissertation period and again at its conclusion in July 2018 revealed patterns that
help to elucidate some of the personal archetypal dynamics that were likely to have
affected the research process.
Baseline results indicated the Magician and Lover as the two most strongly
expressing of my personal archetypes, followed by the Ruler, Innocent, Sage, and
Warrior as the second most commonly occurring. The Destroyer and Orphan were the
least manifesting archetypes in my personal psyche at that time. Results in July 2018
indicated my most influential personal archetypes as Lover and Jester, followed by
Creator, Magician, and Caregiver. The Destroyer and Orphan were again the least
represented. Table 8 shows ranks of the PMAI™ archetypes at both administrations of
the instrument. Pearson-Marr Archetype Indicator™ results reflect the researcher’s
individual archetypal influence profile before and after conducting dissertation research.
Table 8. The Researcher’s Personal Archetypal Profile

Baseline - September 2016 Final - July 2018
PMAI™ Archetype Rank Score Rank Score
Lover Highest 26 Highest 28
Creator High 24 Highest 26
Magician Highest 26 High 24
Jester Tertiary 21 Highest 28
Caregiver High 24 High 24
Innocent High 24 Moderate 22
Ruler High 24 Moderate 21
Warrior High 24 Moderate 20
Sage High 24 Low 13
Seeker Moderate 22 Low 13
Destroyer Low 16 Low 12
Extremely low 8 Extremely low 9
Orphan (shadow) (shadow)
Note. Score categories are adapted from Pearson & Marr’s (2003) guidelines for
interpreting PMAI™ scores and designate the degree of archetypal influence as
extremely low (0-11 points), low (12-17 points), moderate (18-22 points), high (23-25
points, highest 26-30. These designations reflect the authors’ recommendation that
interpretation of results ensure that “the understanding gained from the instrument
resonates with the respondent” rather than strictly adhering to the conventions of
statistical analysis (p. 27).
Although the PMAI™ (Pearson & Marr, 2003) and Archetype of Organization
(Corlett & Pearson, 2003) archetypal categories do not completely match due to
differences between individual and group psychological function, comparison of results
from these two models reflects some intriguing patterns. The most obvious is the
indication that several archetypes not strongly represented in the OPHD organizational
psyche—in particular the Lover, Jester, Caregiver, Creator, and Innocent—appear to
exert a much stronger influence in my personal psyche as reflected in my PMAI™ scores.
Also, the increasing influence of the Jester archetype indicated by my PMAI™ results
appears to correlate with my growing role as a speaker of truth within OPHD during the
course of this inquiry. My scores also indicate a marked decrease in the Sage and Seeker
archetypes during the same time period. This is somewhat puzzling given the intellectual
and somewhat unconventional nature of this inquiry. However, the continuity of the
Magician and the advent of the Jester in my personal archetypal field indicate that the
personal significance of this research may be more related to internal transformation and
uncovering of truths within my workplace than an extraverted search for knowledge.
Within the methodology of this study it is not possible to interpret whether these are
causal correlations, so I will interpret them instead as interesting trends and potential
synchronicities.
Appendix E. Baseline Analysis of OPHD’s Organizational Archetypes
Given that my pre-held perceptions of archetypal influences within OPHD’s

organizational psyche were likely to affect my relationship to the organization under
study as a researcher, I assessed my pre- and post-research perception of OPHD’s
organizational psyche using the Organizational and Team Culture Indicator™ (Pearson,
2003) and tabulated the results in Table 9 below. A self-administered baseline OTCI™
inventory (Pearson, 2003) completed in September 2016 indicated the Ruler, Hero,
Innocent, Sage, and Everyperson as the archetypes I perceived as most active within
OPHD at the start of my dissertation process. While the final inventory conducted in July
2018 indicated increased scores for Everyperson, Innocent, and Sage and reduced scores
for Caregiver, Magician, Explorer, and Revolutionary, my perception of the general
pattern of archetypal expression within OPHD remained relatively consistent throughout
the process. Organizational Team and Culture Indicator™ results in Table 9 reflect the
researcher’s perceptions of OPHD’s archetypal influences before and after conducting the
dissertation research.
Table 9. The Researcher’s Perceived Influences Within OPHD’s Archetype of

Organization
Baseline - September 2016 Final - July 2018
OTCI™ Archetype Rank Score Rank Score
Ruler Highest 37 Highest 38
Hero High 30 High 31
Innocent High 28 Highest 32
Sage High 27 Highest 32
Everyperson High 25 Highest 34
Caregiver High 25 Moderate 20
Magician Moderate 21 Moderate 17
Explorer Moderate 17 Low 14
Lover Moderate 17 Low 16
Revolutionary Moderate 16 Low (shadow) 12
Jester Moderate 16 Low 15
Low (shadow) 10 Low (shadow) 12
Creator
Note. While Pearson (2003) does not provide guidance on interpretation of scoring
patterns in the OTCI™, possible scores for each archetype in this instrument range from
eight to 40. Categories in the rank columns of this table are adapted from Pearson &
Marr’s (2003) guidelines for interpreting PMAI™ scores and designate the degree of
archetypal influence as low (8-15 points), moderate (16-23 points), high (24-31 points),
and highest (32-40 points).
Comparison of the results in Table 8 (personal archetypal profile) with those in

Table 9 (perceived organizational archetypal profile) indicates only a partial fit between
perceived organizational archetypal patterns and the personal archetypal profile discussed
above. These findings corroborate the sense of challenge and displacement that I have
often felt in my workplace as a person whose working style has a strongly relational
focus. I described this dynamic early in my doctoral coursework as the gulf “between my
public servant persona and…my archetypal Self, which still remains in shadow but shows
itself more frequently as I engage in intense introspection” (Chisholm, 2014, p. 1). I now
understand this ongoing challenge as the juxtaposition of opposing archetypal forces that
sets up the possibility of psychic integration via coniunctio oppositorum.
It is notable that with the exception of the Innocent archetype, my perceptions of
OPHD prior to beginning this inquiry match my document analysis findings of the Hero,
Ruler, Sage, and Everyperson as the dominant archetypes within each of the four
quadrants of OPHD’s Archetype of Organization. Baseline OTCI™ (Pearson & Marr,
2003) analysis also corroborated the document analysis findings of the Revolutionary,
Jester, and Creator as the least active archetypes within the OPHD organizational psyche.
This match between my perceptions as a researcher with my initial research findings
could be interpreted in terms of researcher bias. These results also indicate a potential
lack of correlation with my own archetypally mediated values, which indicate the
possibility that psychological friction and its emotional manifestations may have biased
the inquiry. However, the focus group participants’ strong corroboration of the document
analysis results makes these possibilities less likely. It appears more likely that my
intuitive interpretation of OPHD’s archetypal influences prior to conducting this inquiry
simply proved accurate.
Appendix F. Mandala Images
Figure F1. It’s Complicated Figure F2. Untitled
Figure F3. Becoming the Phoenix Figure F4. The Eye is the Storm
Figure F5. Chunky Swirly/Heart of Figure F6. Chunky Swirly II/

Green The Eyes of the Storm
Figure F7. Armistice Figure F8. Life/Death Spiral

Figure F9. Untitled Figure F10. The Wheel of Life
Figure F11. Variations on a Ruptured Figure F12. The Light in the

Eardrum Darkness
Figure F13. The Light of Great Fires Figure F14. The End and the
to the North Beginning
Figure F15. The Nameless One Figure F16. Planet Dissertation

Figure F17. It’s Complicated a.k.a. Figure F18. CloudShieldScarab

Jellyfish Gonads
Figure F19. Eye of the Needle/ Figure F20. The Light in the
Butterfly Wing Darkness
Figure F21. Pinwheel/Catherine Figure F22. Heart of Gold

Wheel/Swastik
Figure F23. Eye of the Storm Figure F24. Chaos and Order
Figure F25. Finity and Infinity Figure F26. Shield of the Tribe
Figure F27. Purple Heart of Gold Figure F28. Perspective

Figure F29. The Eye of the Needle Figure F30. Sky Grandmother/
Bridging the Gap

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Running head: SEEING THROUGH TO THE ORGANIZATIONAL PSYCHE

Seeing Through to the Organizational Psyche:

Laura Franklin Chisholm

Pacifica Graduate Institute

This dissertation has been

Dr. Elizabeth Nelson, Chair

Dr. Sabine Oishi, Reader

Dr. John Corlett, External Reader

Seeing Through to the Organizational Psyche:

Laura Franklin Chisholm

application of Jungian and archetypal psychology to the growth process of an

the agency’s development and modernization. Guided by Hillman’s process of “seeing

through,” further analysis provides alchemical and mythological perspectives on the

agency’s organizational psyche informed by metaphorical analysis of documents and

nuanced opportunity for an organization to “know thyself” not available by means of

conventional public health program evaluations or organizational assessments.

Keywords: archetype, organization, integral inquiry, public health, Jung, Hillman

For Mom and Dad, who showed me the path.

For Bruce, who walked with me.

Chapter 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................... 1

Introduction to the Research Topic ................................................................................. 1

Relevance of the Topic for Depth Psychology ............................................................... 5

Researcher’s Relationship to the Topic .......................................................................... 8

Statement of the Research Problem and Question ........................................................ 16

Chapter 2. Literature Review ............................................................................................ 18

Approaches to Organizational Change ......................................................................... 19

Bolman and Deal’s Four-Frame Model .................................................................... 20

Archetypes: Their Characteristics and Conceptual Origin ........................................... 25

The Confluence of Archetype and Organization .......................................................... 30

Archetypes and the Organizational Psyche................................................................... 34

Organizations and the Archetype of Continuous Improvement ................................... 46

Organizational Renewal and the Public Health Identity Crisis .................................... 50

Precedents for Archetypal Organizational Analysis of Public Health .......................... 53

Chapter 3. Methodology ................................................................................................... 57

Research Approach ....................................................................................................... 57

Research Methodology ................................................................................................. 57

Integral Inquiry: A Transpersonal Approach ............................................................ 58

Ontological Stance .................................................................................................... 59

Major Methodological Influences from Depth Psychology...................................... 60

Overview of the Research Process ................................................................................ 62

Research Procedures ..................................................................................................... 69

Data Collection ......................................................................................................... 69

Data Analysis ............................................................................................................ 71

Ethical Considerations .................................................................................................. 76

Limitations and Delimitations of the Study .................................................................. 81

Organization of the Study ............................................................................................. 83

Chapter 4. Document Analysis and Focus Group Findings .............................................. 86

Archetypes Active Within the Organizational Psyche.................................................. 88

Overall Archetype Expression and Balance ............................................................. 93

Archetype Word Cloud Analysis .............................................................................. 96

Focus Group Discussion Findings .......................................................................... 102

Organizational Recommendations .............................................................................. 131

Preliminary Recommendations ............................................................................... 131

Recommendations from Focus Groups ................................................................... 134

Answering the Research Questions: A Summary of Findings.................................... 137

Chapter 5. Findings from Transferential Data ................................................................ 140

Emotional and Somatic Data from Participants .......................................................... 140

Summary ..................................................................................................................... 155

Chapter 6. Spiraling Inward and Seeing Through .......................................................... 157

Examination of Tools.................................................................................................. 159

Personal Archetypal Analysis ................................................................................. 165

The Wisdom of Dream Images ............................................................................... 166

Guidance from Mandala Images ............................................................................. 168

Psychologizing and Mythologizing ............................................................................ 170