İpek S. Burnett, PhD, is a Turkish-American author who provides a depth psychological critique of social, cultural, and political issues. Based in San Francisco, she serves on the boards of nonprofit organizations and foundations that specialize in social justice, human rights, and democracy.
Born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey, Burnett came to the United States to get a bachelor’s degree from Brown University in Modern Culture & Media and International Relations. She received her master’s degree in Counseling Psychology from California Institute of Integral Studies. She got a second masters and doctorate degree in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. Though her academic work remains rooted in the field of psychology, Burnett’s writing has always had a cultural and critical edge, expanding on a range of topics—xenophobia to racism, militarism to materialism.
Burnett is the author of A Jungian Inquiry into the American Psyche: The Violence of Innocence and the editor of Re-Visioning the American Psyche: Jungian, Archetypal, and Mythological Reflections. She is a contributing writer at CounterPunch and a published novelist, essayist, and poet in Turkey.
Burnett’s work in the nonprofit world builds on her longstanding commitment to human rights a. At present, she is the Co-chair of Human Rights Watch’s Executive Committee in San Francisco and serves on the board of 826 Valencia, an organization dedicated to supporting under-resourced students with their writing skills.
Her professional affiliations include International Association for Jungian Studies, Psychologists for Social Responsibility, The Jungian Society for Scholarly Studies, and APA Peace Psychology Division.