Outside of music, my main passion is psychology—specifically psychology as the discipline of interiority, a method rooted in the work of Jungian analyst Wolfgang Giegerich, who challenges and expands C. G. Jung’s ideas in the spirit of “with Jung, beyond Jung.”
Since 2010 I have served on the Executive Committee of the International Society for Psychology as the Discipline of Interiority (ispdi.org) and after our inaugural conference in Berlin in 2012, our group has hosted many more conferences, symposiums and workshops.
Some of my presentations and published work are found below.
As a songwriter, I have always been interested in the roots of popular music—in particular, the love song. In this presentation, part of the ISPDI Topos series, I argue that the love song can be traced directly to the courtly love tradition initiated by William IX, Duke of Aquitaine, in late 11th-century southern France.
In this lecture from the 2026 ISPDI Symposium, I continue my exploration of courtly love—first examining how love was understood before the era of medieval troubadours, and then tracing that arc down to the modern day.
Where is Human Dignity in Modernity?
During a reading group discussion in 2020, my colleague John Hoedl mentioned his discomfort with Giegerich's seemingly disparaging comments about human dignity in the book Coniunctio. This stray comment led to my Topos presentation on the topic, my writing the introduction to Human Dignity and the Garden of Eden Story and my paper in this collection from the 2024 ISPDI conference in Berlin.
Human Dignity and the Garden of Eden Story: Distinctions, Disputations, and New Insights
In 2020 I gave a presentation about the topic of human dignity in the work of Wolfgang Giegerich for the Topos series at ispdi.org. Out of this came a fascinating dispute between Marco Heleno Barreto and Giegerich. I was invited to write the introduction to the resulting book.
This is my initial exploration of the topic of human dignity in the work of Wolfgang Giegerich.
Where is Human Dignity in Modernity
ISPDI Conference, Berlin 2024