About Me
Ph.D. and M.A. in Mythological Studies and Depth Psychology
Pacifica Graduate Institute, Carpinteria, CA
Dissertation: The Psychology of Home: An Archetypal Study of Relationship to Place
B.A. Humanities, Focus: Sacred Mythology
DePaul University, Chicago, IL
Thesis: From Madness to Meaning: Spiritual Direction in America Today
Jan Peppler PhD
Follow me at Finding Home on Substack for weekly thoughts on everything having to do with the psychology of home.
My background includes social services, nonprofits, teaching, and counseling. In private practice since 1994, my work has focused on helping others understand life stories that shape physical and emotional patterns, heal old wounds, embrace their potential, and become the hero of their own mythic journey.
I am a Universal Life Church minister specializing in customized rituals and sacred ceremonies for life’s most important moments and performed my first house blessing in 1985. My studies in numerology began in1998.
I also spent many years working in HIV/AIDS social services, providing direct services to clients and caregivers, facilitating support groups, and organizing hospice care.
As a writer and former college professor of English and Humanities, I am profoundly aware of the power of stories. Assisting others in recognizing the stories that consciously and unconsciously influence our lives, is what I enjoy most.
A little more...
I’ve moved around a bit. Not a rolling stone, not an intrepid traveler, not lost and searching… rather, life unfolds and has called me to various places. I’ve been moving since I was eighteen. The longest I lived in one place was in a very small town in Idaho. I love it. I really loved it. And, eventually, I knew I couldn’t stay. But before I could leave, I needed to understand what drew me there in the first place. Why did that place feel like home?
So I went back to school and spent a number of years researching home from various perspectives. I wrote a dissertation, earned my PhD, and left the home I loved so much in order to continue my research.
In 2018, I landed in Tulsa and couldn’t be happier. I found my new home. At least, my new home for now.
Meanwhile, I’ve learned a lot. I now understand specific things that were imprinted on me as a child, things that trigger a home response for me, provide me with that “ahhh! yes, this feels right!” sense of comfort and belonging. You know, the thing we are each always looking for. What we need to feel grounded, settled, safe, and secure.
Finding home, having home, allows the freedom to explore in other ways. And I am not done with my exploring. This is where the hero journey comes in – another one of my favorite topics.
Ultimately, we are, each of us, always, on some sort of hero journey. We each need to leave home (quite literally, symbolically, or metaphorically), in some way, at some time, or maybe many times. The key is to learn what home is for you – you, individually – so you can create it anywhere you are, and wherever your journey leads you.