Integrative Psychology: From Lab to Global Practice

The questions regarding “who to be” and “what to do” have exploded in the last half century, as globalization has offered a kaleidoscope of opportunity and avenues. Vast cultural and technological progress has also led to greater difficulty as individuals navigate these existential choices, as well as the lived experience of day-to-day life. Roles and responsibilities across family, workplace, social life, and cultural contexts require greater awareness and abilities in considering and then living out human motivation, thought, emotion, and action, as well as the means for bringing about, and adapting to change, as the only life constant. Examining psychology as a hub science, students in this program, will engage with research, and develop “actionable knowledge and skill sets” for careers in every conceivable setting, as well as greater well-being across the lifespan. This program is taught as a year-long, fully on-line, scaffolded arc examining the full spectrum of human experience, limitations and potential.

In fall quarter, we will explore the underpinnings of the homo sapien experience across the last 70,000 years regarding neuroscience, states of consciousness, sensation and perception, cognition, memory and intelligence, learning theory, emotion and motivation, lifespan development, and abnormal and counseling psychology, including a specific focus on the period from 1879 to the present, in the lab, as well as real-world settings. 

In winter quarter, the focus shifts to contemporary personality, social, and developmental psychology, regarding the complexity of “the self” and our individual and collective narratives that shape the malleable mindsets and settings we cultivate across the lifespan, in love, work, play, and service to others. Meaning making, breaking, and reconstruction will be studied using the “life story model of identity,” as the student learns skills in “story and situation crafting,” interpersonal and cultural competence, and narrative repair. 

In spring quarter, students will see their academic efforts come full circle as the fundamental knowledge and skill from the previous two quarters are used to establish beliefs and practices for both a meaningful and happier life, within the inevitable suffering (obstacles and barriers, failure, trauma) that accompanies every “self and story.”

Program content will mostly draw from the sub-disciplines of social-cognitive-neuroscience, personality, social, developmental, and health psychology, as well as Positive Psychology, that has informed the discipline in how to help resolve suffering. This will be supplemented by scholarship from other disciplines (philosophy, anthropology, history, literature, cross-cultural studies, etc.) to enhance an informed preparation for graduate school or career.

Along the way, the program will be joined by some of the greatest psychologists of the last half century as they Zoom into our virtual classroom, after students have read and discussed their research and applicable ideas (social power and influence, cognitive bias and self-deception, life-story model of identity, emotional and social intelligence, therapeutic writing, etc.). The content for each class session will be drawn from the current empirical research placed in historical and geographical context, for use across the globe.

Anticipated Credit Equivalencies:

Fall:

4 - Biopsychosocial Psychology

4 - Developmental Psychology

Winter:

4 - Personality Theory

4 - Social Psychology

Spring:

4 - Positive Psychology and Well-Being Theory

4 - Counseling Psychology

The additional 4 credits for students enrolled in the 12-credit option will depend on student focus on psychological theory and concept in self-directed areas of interest.