East-West Psychology Programs

The East-West Psychology Department offers three degree programs:

• PhD in East-West Psychology
• Master of Arts in East-West Psychology
• Certificate in East-West Spiritual Counseling

The East-West Psychology (EWP) department is a multidisciplinary department concerned with the meeting of Eastern, Western, and indigenous psychological and spiritual traditions.

Through its unique combination of cognitive and experiential offerings, the department seeks to ground academic excellence and the acquisition of professional skills in both the personal transformation of students and the cultivation of a spiritually informed scholarship.

As an academic field, EWP constitutes a larger context for many disciplines that explore the interface of psychology and spirituality, including

• transpersonal and integral psychology
• Asian psychologies
• modern consciousness studies
• participatory spirituality
• depth psychology (Jungian, archetypal, and psychoanalytic)
• contemplative psychology
• religious comparative studies
• shamanic studies, and
• ecopsychology.

Approaching the encounter among Eastern, Western, and indigenous worldviews in the spirit of pluralism, dialogue, and open inquiry, we actively explore the implications of this convergence for our diverse and multicultural world.

Educational Vision

The department of East-West Psychology is guided by and dedicated to the following educational ideals:

• To create a learning community focused on the exploration of Western, Eastern, and indigenous psychologies and spiritualities in the spirit of integral inquiry and open-ended dialogue
• To offer an integral education that honors not only intellectual excellence, but also the voice and wisdom of the somatic, vital, emotional, imaginal, and spiritual dimensions of the person
• To bring spirituality into academia and explore the transformative elements of inquiry, learning, and writing
• To foster the psychospiritual development of students, as well as their unique individual gifts and potentials

Integral Transformative Education

The department offers an integral transformative education that encourages students to engage in the twin tasks of the integration of knowledge and the integration of multiple ways of knowing.

The integration of knowledge concerns itself with building bridges between different fields of knowledge (for example, psychoanalysis and Buddhism). Additionally, at the doctoral level, it encourages the integration of various research methodologies (e.g., theoretical, phenomenological, narrative, and/or heuristic), standpoints (e.g., subjective, intersubjective, and objective approaches to knowledge), and epistemologies (e.g., Eastern contemplative and Western scientific).

With the integration of multiple ways of knowing, students develop inquiry skills that engage a wide range of human faculties and experiences (e.g., somatic, emotional, vital, imaginal, intellectual, intuitive, spiritual).

The acquisition of these skills is not only a catalyst for meaningful personal transformation, but also the foundation for both the elaboration of more holistic knowledge and the design of integral transformative approaches relevant to the needs of individuals and collectives in the contemporary world.

Collaborative Learning

Collaborative learning is central to the pedagogical experience in all the EWP programs. Depending on particular course objectives, this includes the appropriate use of dialogical inquiry, class presentations and small-group discussions, web-based learning and networking tools, group assignments and cooperative inquiry, as well as group work in daylong retreats.

Collaborative learning trains students in the shared construction of human knowledge, fosters emotional and interpersonal competence, and teaches how to enter into fruitful exchange with people holding different views. These skills translate into multiple professional settings.

Professional Outcomes

The department prepares graduates to function as university professors, college teachers, scholars, writers, consultants, researchers, workshop leaders, spiritual counselors, entrepreneurs, social-change activists, and community organizers in a world that increasingly demands an integral perspective that encompasses the personal, interpersonal, cultural, and spiritual dimensions of human nature.

In addition to helping students develop academic credentials for traditional teaching positions, the department supports students in envisioning creative applications of psychology outside academia and state licensure.

Spiritual counseling and leadership, integral coaching, interreligious activism, community action, and organizational consulting are just a few of the potential fields for such creative work.