A Jungian scholar, Mayes has produced the first book-length studies in English on the pedagogical applications of Jungian and post-Jungian psychology, which is based on the work of Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961). Jungian psychology is also called analytical psychology. Mayes' work, situated in the humanities and depth psychology, is thought to offer an alternative to the social sciences model.
Mayes has developed what he has termed archetypal pedagogy. His work aims at promoting what he calls archetypal reflectivity in teachers; this is a means of encouraging teachers to examine and work with psychodynamic issues, images, and assumptions as those factors affect their pedagogical practices. Archetypal reflectivity, which draws not only upon Jungian psychology but transpersonal psychology generally, offers an avenue for teachers to probe the spiritual dimensions of teaching and learning in non-dogmatic terms. Mayes' archetypal pedagogy also examines salient issues in curriculum theory and instructional theory through a classically Jungian lens. Recently, his work has turned to what he calls "educative processes," which sees teaching and learning as inherent in all human relationships of any emotional, cognitive, or ethical moment (2020, 2019, 2017).
Two of Mayes' books, Inside Education: Depth Psychology in Teaching and Learning (2007) and The Archetypal Hero's Journey in Teaching and Learning: A Study in Jungian Pedagogy (2010), incorporate the psychoanalytic theories of Heinz Kohut (particularly Kohut's notion of the "selfobject") and the object relations theory of Ronald Fairbairn and D.W. Winnicott. Some of Mayes' work in curriculum theory, especially Seven Curricular Landscapes: An Approach to the Holistic Curriculum (2003) and Understanding the Whole Student: Holistic Multicultural Education (2007), is concerned with holistic education. The latter text is one of the first to extend the holistic approach into the area of multicultural education. A recent book, An Introduction to the Collected Works of C.G. Jung: Psyche as Spirit, appeared in 2017 through Rowman and Littlefield Press. Mayes has written on various topics in Jungian Sand Tray Therapy. His latest study, Archetype, Culture, and the Individual in Education: The Three Pedagogical Narratives, appeared in May, 2020 through Routledge Press. In it, Mayes offers a theory of the archetype that includes Ricoeur's categorization of time into personal/biographical time, cultural/world-historical time, and eternal/Yogic time.
Mayes has also edited a volume of recent research by new Jungian scholars on various applications of archetypal pedagogy to areas ranging from theology to therapy and from teacher education to vocational education. In press and slated for release though Rowman and Littlefield Press in early 2021, it is entitled New Visions and New Voices: Explorations in Archetypal Pedagogics. A second volume, which elaborates on the themes in that book with mostly the same group of contributors, is now in progress at Rowman and Littlefield and will appear in Summer 2022. Turning his attention to multicultural matters and peace studies, both from an archetypal perspective, Mayes is in the process of writing two new books. Intercultural Competence: A Mixed-Methods Case Study of Exchange Programs with Dinah D'Antoni and Compassion and Conflict Resolution: An Archetypal Approach with Jacquelyn Rinaldi are slated to appear late in Winter 2022. A practicing Roman Catholic, Mayes is also in process of writing an archetypal approach to the Gospel of St. John entitled Symbol as Sacrament: A Study in Archetypal Exegesis.
Mayes holds a doctorate in the cultural foundations of education from the University of Utah and a doctorate in psychology from Southern California University for Professional Studies.
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