Melanie Starr Costello

Melanie Starr Costello, PhD is a licensed clinical psychologist, historian, and Zurich-trained Jungian analyst in private practice in Washington, D.C. since 1999. She earned her doctorate in the History and Literature of Religions from Northwestern University. A former Assistant Professor of History at St. Mary's College of Maryland, Dr. Costello has taught and published on the topics of psychology and religion, medieval spirituality, aging and spirituality, and image making in clinical practice. Her book, Imagination, Illness and Injury: Jungian Psychology and the Somatic Dimensions of Perception, is published by Routledge press.

Dr. Costello has served on the Board of the C.G. Jung Foundation of New York, as the Director of Education for the Jungian Analysts of Washington Association, and as Trustee for the Consortium for Psychoanalytic Research in Washington, DC. She has lectured and presented widely at institutions including the C.G. Jung Foundation for Analytical Psychology in New York, the Oregon Friends of Jung, the Philadelphia Association of Jungian Analysts, the Jung Society of Washington, and the Library of Congress.

Her therapeutic approach centers on Jungian analysis, which promotes healing and life-changing awareness through creative exploration of the individual's inner world. By cultivating a relation to spontaneous products of the unconscious, the experience of self, other, and world deepens. Her work encompasses psychotherapy for adults, Jungian analysis, and lectures and workshops on topics including dreamwork, aging and spirituality, medieval mysticism, and depth psychology.