Meet Our Board Members

Theresa Yuschok, President, is a psychiatrist in Chapel Hill, NC.
     

I value the vibrant  fellowship of others who explore the psychological and spiritual depths.  We engage with outstanding speakers and authors to shed light on applying  Jung's ideas individually and collectively.

  A college theater class taught by a psychoanalyst, "Psychological and Archetypal Approaches to Literature"  introduced me to Jungian depth psychology and I have devoted decades to expanding my understanding psychologically, creatively and spiritually.
 

Psychologically, I  learned  to recognize compelling complexes with an archetypal theme from myths or fairytales which replay in my life or current events. When I embrace the rejected "shadow", I find some gold treasure. Wrestling with inner conflict or interpersonal disagreement, I have appreciated the alchemy that, if I am patient, holding the tension of opposites, a third possibility emerges.
 

Creatively, I use active imagination such as written dialogue, art, sound, movement and associations to amplify symbols that cross my path in waking life or  in dreams. The language of symbols enhances my creative writing.
 

Spiritually, Jung described a universal and  innate religious instinct to strive to connect with the Transcendent.I honor and celebrate numinous experiences, synchronicities, search for meaning, journey to wholeness in myself and others.
 

My favorite quote is from Marie-Louise von Franz, "The experience of Self brings the feeling of standing on solid ground, inside oneself, on a patch of eternity, which even physical death cannot touch."

In my 70th year I have found in the Jung Society of the Triangle a welcoming and supportive community which has offered me not only numerous opportunities to increase my knowledge of different paths to genuine self knowledge by virtue of the many different speakers and workshops the Society sponsors, but also the opportunity to make new friends with whom I share the common interest of using this profound gift of a human life to grow both emotionally and spiritually.

I come from a pathologically enmeshed nuclear family, and the real beginning of my quest towards some genuine self understanding and relief from my personal confusion began in my senior year in high school when my distress finally began to break through what, up until that moment, I had experienced as impregnable internalized barriers to personal authenticity. In the years since, I have engaged in many hours of psychotherapy, spent much time in recording and puzzling over the meanings of my dreams, travelled many miles, hitchhiking alone in Europe for months at a time, travel which I loved and which often offered me profound opportunities not only for adventure but also for personal insight.  I have read much, and that reading has proved to be very helpful, not only the writings of Jung, but also the works of the Scottish existentialist psychoanalyst R. D. Laing, the brilliant Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa, the American mythologist Joseph Campbell, the American anthropologist and communications theorist Gregory Bateson, and the great Russian novelist Dostoevsky, among others. I am happy at this moment in my life to have arrived at some awareness of the dynamics at play in my life.

 Melissa  has over forty years’ experience as an administrator.  She has been a secretary, a staff assistant, a long-range planner, an assistant provost, an associate dean and an instructor.  She has worked at Kelly Girls, AC Nielsen, Harvard University, and Duke University.  She has managed departmental, financial, organizational and information technology operations, as well as leading multiple long-range planning projects.      

As an administrator, Melissa has had the opportunity to serve on many boards.  She has been especially active in Rotary as a volunteer.  She also loves studying science, practicing religions and reconciling philosophies.

Melissa majored in History as an undergraduate at Connecticut College, and early in her career earned an MBA at Duke’s Fuqua School.  After an early retirement, she returned to the Duke Divinity School for a Master of Theological Studies.  After that, she took up research and teaching around the subject, “What does it mean to be human?” a subject that arises at the confluence of economics, evolution, and happiness.  She likes to think of herself as a practical philosopher and a pioneer.  The work of C. G. Jung provides guideposts and cairns along a path that is both practical and pioneering.

Melissa loves music, reading, writing and being active outdoors.  She has a grown daughter who lives in Manhattan, two dogs, three indoor cats, one outdoor cat and loves feeding and watching birds and other “wild” animals.

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 I have been a member of the Jung Society since the week I moved to Chapel Hill in 1985. Before moving I would attend the CG Jung Foundation in NYC. I soon became a board member on and off, but was mainly a member at large. I then entered training into the Inter Regional Society of Jungian Analysis for seven years. I continue to have a strong interest in Jung’s ideas and how they can help individuals and the world.

I worked for almost 40 years in the field of mental health at various jobs as a clinical Social Worker until retiring a few years ago.  After being a runner for 45 years, and someone who loved backpacking, I am now limited in my physical activities. I do continue to read a lot on psychology, archaeology and history. I enjoy doing puzzles, bird watching and playing darts. I continue to travel some which is something I have always done and spend time with family and friends, especially my first grandchild.

Currently, a great deal of my time and energy is given to parenting three pre-school children with my partner.  They are everything and helping them navigate their individual universes teaches me more about my own universe than any other experience that I have encountered.  I love my little family, dearly.   Professionally, I am a licensed marriage and family therapist (LMFT), with a private practice in Durham.  In many ways and for several reasons, in my vocational arena I feel like I am living my dream.   

I grew up in Lincoln County, NC, however, I spent most of my adult life in California.  I attended Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA and obtained a Master of Divinity before completing a M.S. in Marital and Family Therapy.  

I became interested in Jungian ideas through a series of synchronistic experiences and relationships; the most consequential being my personal work with a Jungian analyst, which began in 2019.  Through this, I began reading and listening to Jung and other Jungians like Marion Woodman, Edward Edinger, June Singer, James Hillman, Robert Moore, etc.  I began doing dream-work.  And, I also developed friendships with others who resonated with Jungian ideas.  Engaging with Jungian material (which is so very vast) has helped me to become a more whole being, gain awareness, and become more curious.  

The Jungian community has become dear to me, so when we moved to Durham in June of 2021, connecting with the Jung Society of the Triangle was on the top of my to-do list.  I am grateful to be on this journey of learning alongside of other kindred souls.

Lee Lawrence was a university tax law professor, Certified Public Accountant, litigation consultant, and business entrepreneur prior to a Near Death Experience from meningitis that changed his life and perception of reality in 1988.  Subsequently he changed his career path with a degree in psychology and continued studying and performing neuroscience research for over thirty years as a tool to understand human consciousness.  His interest is in techniques that demonstrate that the human soul or spirit exists, and understanding the soul's structure and dynamics based upon a belief that religion(s) are theories and philosophies of the anatomy & physiology of the human soul and how it interacts with its environment.  The human soul, including the stored memories of past experiences are physical objects to his perception as a result of the illness.

His techniques demonstrate that the human soul or spirit exists, and explains the soul's structure and its functions. He bypasses the critical mind and reveals the experiences stored in the soul that generate personality patterns and cognitive processing. This opens the door to reveal the emotional subconscious mind. The explanations on how and where memories are stored, processed and retrieved are beyond modern science's understanding and are supported by his profound demonstrations.

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Lee has presented frequently in many venues including universities, churches, academic conferences and organization meetings across the USA and Europe.  
 

Lou Lipsitz is currently a psychotherapist in Chapel Hill for the last 25 years. Previously he taught Political Science at UNC until 1995, where he taught modern political ideas and co-authored a textbook in American politics.

He has published three books of poetry: If This World Falls Apart (2011), Seeking the Hook (1998), Cold Water (1967). “I have been drawn to Jungian ideas particularly through his thinking about male and female psychology and the interest in fairy tales that has grown out of his writings.”

 Ann Loomis found The C.G. Jung Society of the Triangle shortly after moving to Chapel Hill in 1992. Since then, she has twice served as President and has participated in many valuable Jung Society workshops and events. Ann likes to call Carl Jung her “spiritual grandfather,” especially since her maternal grandfather’s ancestors are from Zermatt in the Germanic section of Switzerland. Another part of Ann’s DNA hails from the Isle of Jura in Scotland, which may be one reason she is interested in Celtic spirituality. As a “cradle Presbyterian,” she has noticed the absence of the feminine principle in the Protestant faith, andCeltic spirituality has provided a balance for this. In fact, one  of the books Ann has authored is titled “Celtic Cycles: Guidance from the Soul on the Spiritual Journey,” which focuses on the seasonal cycles on the Celtic Wheel of the Year.

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 Another book that Ann has authored is titled “Write from the Start: Discover Your Writing Potential through the Power of Psychological Type.” Since it was psychological type that first brought her to Jung’s teachings, Ann credits her “spiritual grandfather” for being the Wise Old Man behind this book on type.

Ann is now happily and busily retired from many years as a language teacher:   Spanish, English Composition, and English as a Second Language. She and her husband, Bob, have two grown sons and six grandchildren.

James Peacock followed his father around the country as the father trained to do D Day, which he survived, then moved the family to Georgia.

Jim’s first job was at age 13 working for his father’s electrical contracting business. Jim then survived his own foolishness after he jumped off a truck going down the highway. Was unhurt.

In 1958, while majoring in psychology at Duke, he was inspired by a talk by Alfred Kroeber, father of Ursula LaGuinn, at the annual anthropology meetings in Washington, D.C. in 1958 hence decided to go into anthropology.

Upon graduation from Duke he travelled to Germany and visited the Jung Institute in Zurich. Fall 1959 he travelled to Harvard for graduate school and in 1961 to Yale to study Indonesian language, where he met Florence Peacock who was at Yale Music School studying for a degree in Music. They got married then travelled to Indonesia where Jim did fieldwork and she was bitten by a rabid dog but survived.

Jim earned his Ph.D. and got a position at Princeton then at UNC, hence they live in Chapel Hill. They have 3 daughters. Jim attended the first meeting of the C. G. Jung Society for the Triangle Area and has attended sessions ever since.

I have been an avid, life-long reader and student of the works of C.G .Jung and his immediate circle of associates, as well as the coterie of analysts who have created the vast body of literature exploring the richness of his ideas and contributions to the world of depth psychology.

I am retired from a long career in New York City as a recruiter of professionals for the technical and business community, and later as a career counselor and recruiter for special programs at Pace University in Manhattan. After my husband's retirement, we spent some years in Sarasota, Fl. and I worked in college admissions.

My BA and MA are in the field of English Literature, not related to the field of psychology, to be sure, but my Jungian studies throughout the years, provided an enormous benefit to me for the psychologically oriented career in which I found myself. 

From the Assisi Institute founded by Michael Conforti, PhD., I earned an Advanced Certificate in Dream Analysis and a Certificate as an Archetypal Pattern Analyst.  My present Jungian concentration of interest is primarily in the work of Marie Louise VonFranz. 

My other passionate interests are for the arts of embroidery and crochet, the classics in music, including jazz, as well as in the world of literature, from the ancients to the present day.

My husband, Bill, as well as our seven children and step children scattered across the country, have been highly supportive as I have pursued these interests through the years.  Bill and I are enjoying North Carolina, our home for the past three years in Cary, the blessings of Duke medical care, and our new North Carolina friends and associates.

Kenneth Turner brings a variety of life experiences to his work with the board. He earned a PhD in Physics (Princeton, 1962), an MA in Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology (University of West Georgia, 2007), and passed the National Counselors exam. He has been an astronomer, an research administrator, a federal bureaucrat, an executive at a high tech start-up company, a college professor, an entrepreneur, and a psychotherapist. He has married, helped raise children (his own and others), lived abroad, been widowed twice, and retired. Kenneth holds certifications in the Body Centered Transformation work of Gay and Katlyn Hendricks, and in the Enneagram approach of Kathy Hurley and Theodorre Donson. He is an authorized facilitator for the Institute of Noetic Sciences Conscious Aging program and has been involved with Jungian psychology for more than forty years.