Thanks for stopping by my site. I hope you enjoy the pages on the left,
which include many articles, published and unpublished, my biogaphy, photos, favorite
links,
and more. And please do me a favor and sign my guestbook at the bottom of this page,
but enter only text--anything else reads as jibberish.
My previously published book
Published in
2008 by
From the back cover:
An interesting and socially-important psychological review of the criminal archetype, that views the phenomenon
of criminalized drug addiction both from the inside, as well as from the academic perspective. Dr John Smethers takes us on
a deeply personal journey, looking at the root causes and effects of a sub-culture populated by society's social outcasts.
Drug addicts, alcoholics and petty criminals are studied from the unique perspective of someone who has not only 'been there',
but one who has also successfully struggled against the social and psychological forces that have lead so many of our young
men into hopelessness and despair. This is a keen and insightful look into a little-known underworld which we all, in one
way or another, have helped to create. (Stephen Manning, Ph.D., author of TheColor of Truth)
Depth psychologist John Smethers' Scumbag Sewer Rats offers a unique, fascinating and heartfelt
glimpse into the world of criminalized drug addicts, revealing both the self-indulgence and the outgong humanity of the puer
and trickster images that is so prevalent in the social order of this shadowed underworld. (Mike Denney, MD, PhD, author
of Second Opinion)
CLICK ON THE AMAZON OR BARNES & NOBLE ICON TO ORDER
My name is John E. Smethers, Ph.D. I am retired, but am still
on the adjunct faculty list in the psychology department of Barstow College and the sociology department of Park University
at Ft. Irwin, (NTC) , Barstow, (MCLB), and Blythe, California.
If anyone has questions concerning addiction/recovery, feel free to send
me an email.
NEWSPAPER ARTICLE ABOUT ME
SIGMUND FREUD
FOUNDER OF PSYCHOANALYSIS
CARL JUNG
FOUNDER OF ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY
JAMES HILLMAN
FOUNDER OF ARCHETYPAL PSYCHOLOGY
My interests are Addiction/Recovery,
Depth Psychology &
the American Civil War
WHAT IS DEPTH PSYCHOLOGY?
The short answer: depth psychology is the psychology of the unconscious. To elaborate, depth psychology is a tradition initiated by Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and developed by others, including James Hillman with his Archetypal
re-visioning of Psychology as well as many of the phenomenological schools. The spirit of depth psychology is cultivated
by understanding literature, myth, spirituality, alchemy, and mythology.
Carl Gustav Jung wrote that:
"Anyone who wants to know the human psyche will learn next to nothing from experimental
psychology. He would be better advised to put away his scholar’s gown, bid farewell to his study, and wander with human
heart through the world. There, in the horrors of prisons, lunatic asylums and hospitals, in drab suburban pubs, in brothels
and gambling-hells [sic], in the salons of the elegant, the Stock Exchanges, Socialist meetings, churches, revivalist gatherings
and ecstatic sects, through love and hate, through the experience of passion in every form in his own body, he would reap
richer stores of knowledge than text-books a foot thick could give him, and he will know how to doctor the sick with real
knowledge of the human soul" (Jung, 1945, 1953, p. 244 [CW 7, para. 409]).
Criminalized drug addicts (mostly male), who I also refer to as jointsters,
personify two archetypes: the Puer Aeternus (eternal boy in Latin) and the Trickster