6340. Marriage and Family Therapy. Grounded in considering human subjectivity from an existential-phenomenological standpoint,
students will learn the history of marriage and family therapy alongside the major
types of approaches to working with couples and families. This includes an application
of family systems theory to the study of family dynamics with a focus on structural,
strategic, and systems perspectives. The course will emphasize similarities and differences
between marriage and family therapy and individual therapy as students gain a background
in both the theory and clinical techniques of marriage and family therapy. Prerequisite,
PSY 6321.
6345. Trauma and Crisis Intervention: Theories, Response Models, and Techniques. Grounded in considering human subjectivity from an existential-phenomenological standpoint,
this course provides an introduction to the theories associated with trauma and crisis.
Students will develop a foundation for assessing and treating post-traumatic reactions
in adults along with an overview of trauma responses in children. This includes an
examination of the psychosocial factors associated with trauma response as well as
the cognitive, affective, and behavioral sequelae associated with trauma. Practice
trends in post-trauma therapy will be reviewed as well as skills and techniques utilized
in crisis intervention including assessment and triage, and safety and security concerns.
Self-care strategies to prevent compassion fatigue among those who treat trauma will
also be addressed. Prerequisite, PSY 6321.
5311. Humanistic Theories of Personality. Introduction to the writings of pioneers in humanistic psychology such as Carl Rogers,
Abraham Maslow, Rollo May, Gordon Allport, George Kelly, Fritz Perls, Ken Wilber and
other kindred thinkers like Alfred Adler, Karen Horney, Erich Fromm and Viktor Frankl.
Primary sources such as these, who have developed implications for counseling and
psychotherapy from their examination of the nature of the person “as a whole,” are
the foundation for the course.
5339. Psychology and Religion. A study of various topics, such as the relationships between modern psychology and
religion; the place of religious life in psychological health and illness; psychology
as secularized religion.
5345. Motivation and Emotion. The dynamic and purposive character of action. Dynamic theories of personality; conceptions
from philosophical tradition, e.g., faculty psychology, studies of the will, the passions.
6322. Seminar: Issues in Clinical Psychology. Primary source readings in Freud, Jaspers, Rorschach, Murray, Allport, Rogers, Sullivan,
Leary as well as the DSM-IV Guidebook provide the basis for this seminar. Descriptive
versus explanatory approaches to psychopathology are considered along with the current
trend towards evidence-based practice. Psychodynamic and humanistic traditions are
distinguished from their psychometric counterpart. The standard psychiatric nomenclature
of the DSM-IV is presented along with its implications for the professional treatment
of psychological “illness.” Toward the end of the semester students examine critiques
of existing systems of diagnostic classification and the psychopharmaceutical treatment
of mental illness (Szasz, Laing, Keen).
6331. History and Systems in Psychology. Seminar that will consider fundamental texts of the pre-modern and modern periods,
or that will trace the history of significant ideas in the history of Western thinking
pertaining to the “soul” or psychological life. The approach of this course informed
in part by recent trends in historiography.
6335. Mixed Methods Research. Casting a critical eye to the notion of approach with regard to quantitative and
qualitative research, this course takes up an exploration of the boundaries and domains
of qualitative and quantitative research methods. Special attention is paid to the
role of approach in the assessment of the validity of both quantitative and qualitative
research. By defining the domains, assumptions, guiding questions and knowledge claims
of quantitative and qualitative research, students learn to propose, design and carry
out mixed methods research that embraces the strengths and acknowledges the limitations
of each approach and effectively present its results.
6336. Advanced Quantitative Research. To further enhance students’ familiarity with quantitative research methodology and
to facilitate higher levels of integration between quantitative and qualitative research,
this course exposes students to advanced statistical designs including logistic regression,
mediation and moderation effects, multivariate and factorial models and structural
equation modeling. Students will become adept at reviewing literature using these
advanced statistical techniques and in designing and carrying out research using these
models.
6351. Directed Readings. A tutorial course arranged between the professor and the student. Prerequisite: written
permission of the Program Director and the Graduate Dean.
6354. Health Psychology. Study of the relationships between health and illness, on the one hand and behavior,
attitudes, ways of life, on the other. An exploration of the psychological concomitants
of health and disease, as well as conventional and non-conventional forms of treatment
for disease. The phenomenology of embodiment and of disease as a mode of existence
is integral to the course. Other topics include the examination of the social and
political meanings of our views of health and illness. The social construction of
health and illness concepts, the limits of medicine and of medicalization, the arts
of living, suffering and dying are discussed.
6V77, 6V78, 6V79. Special Studies. This course, conducted in a regular class setting, provides an opportunity to examine
a special topic, problem, or work within the discipline. Content is determined by
the Program Director in consultation with the faculty.
7179. Professional Writing. This course represents an opportunity for students to develop a manuscript for professional
presentation or publication , with the guidance of a faculty mentor.
7312. Hermeneutic Foundations of Psychological Research. Introduction to seminal texts in hermeneutics (Dilthey, Heidegger, Gadamer, Palmer)
and in psychological applications of hermeneutic principles.
7355. Embodiment and Sexuality. The Cartesian framework of Modern thought is presented through the writings of Sigmund
Freud, who considered himself a "pioneer on the frontier between the psychic and the
somatic." Sartre’s dialectical phenomenology is then utilized to provide an alternative
to the dualism of mind and body inherent in Western psychological traditions. Merleau-Ponty’s
"ontology of the flesh," informed by the later Husserl, provides a foundation for
a reformulation of the problem of the body in Modern thought. Supplementary readings
are drawn from Lacan, Beauvoir, Lingis, as well as feminist and postfeminist writers.
