Dylan Martinez Francisco, PhD

Dylan Martinez Francisco, PhD, is an assistant professor and co-chair of the Jungian and Archetypal Studies MA/PhD program at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, California. Dylan grounds his work in depth psychology, decolonialism, and the Nahua/Indigenous/Shamanic traditions of his Mexican lineage that provide a primordial, holistic, and sacred worldview within which to understand the psyche, to embody its wholeness individually, and to live it relationally through honoring Spirit, the ancestors, and the land.

Topics of particular focus for Dylan are decolonizing depth psychological views of the psyche and human development; the intersection of psychedelics, animism, and depth psychology; Indigenous ways of understanding and relating to AI/Technology; warriorhood as an approach to conflict resolution; and Indigenous psychologies and cosmologies. Most recently, he contributed the chapter “Artificial Intelligences: Animism and AI” in the edited volume Depth Psychology, Myth and Artificial Intelligence: Soul and the Machine published by Palgrave Macmillan.

Dylan lives with his wife, Molly, and two daughters, Beatrix and Remi, in southwest Colorado, and traces his lineage to the land of the San Luis Valley of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, where his ancestors lived for centuries prior to its establishment as a U.S. territory. He particularly aspires to embody in his life and work the heritage of his mother, Diana Marie Toms, a leader and healer in her community, who practices curanderismo as holistic care for spirit, mind, and body.