Degree Requirements: Bachelor's degree
Completion Time: 2-3 years
Earned Credits: 33-36
Many professionals integrate the practice of spiritual guidance into various settings, including businesses, nonprofits, religious/spiritual organizations, and health care. The study of spirituality supports students who want to pursue work in pastoral care, spiritual guidance, spiritual mentoring, and life coaching or who want to integrate understanding of the spiritual dimension of human life into another profession or field.
The Consciousness, Spirituality, and Integrative Health Specialization takes an interdisciplinary and integrative (psyche, mind, body, and spirit) approach to understanding individual, cultural, transcultural, and transpersonal perspectives on consciousness evolution, biopsychosocial-spiritual and cultural transformation, spirituality, healing, healthful and vibrant longevity, individuation, wholeness, and wellness. We believe that well-being and health need to embrace all dimensions of human life. The integrated study of consciousness, spirituality, and integrative health offers ways of understanding people’s internal and external growth, worlds, and lives as accessible through such pathways as consciousness studies, the world’s spiritual and wisdom, traditions, and healing arts, depth psychology, transpersonal psychology, energy medicine, healthspan and vibrant longevity, spiritual creativity, self-regulation and self-healing, hypnosis, imagery and the imaginal, the arts, dreamwork, and contemplative practices. In this context, students are able to focus their work on transpersonal psychology, transpersonal inquiry, and transpersonal practices.
The study of consciousness, psychology of consciousness, and consciousness evolution offers students a unique opportunity to explore various aspects of consciousness through approaches ranging from ethnography, autoethnography, and historiography to phenomenological, heuristic and Heuristic Self-Search Inquiry, hermeneutic, and art-based explorations of work and community life, interpersonal relationships, spiritual beliefs and practices, extended healthspan, healthful and vibrant longevity, culture, and social action.
The study of spirituality supports students who want to pursue work in pastoral care, spiritual guidance, spiritual mentoring, and life coaching or who want to integrate understanding of the spiritual dimension of human life into another profession or field. Faculty members work with students to focus their studies to best meet their academic, professional, and personal goals.
This specialization allows students to focus on the study of interdisciplinary and integrative approaches to health, healing, healthspan, healthful and vibrant longevity, and well-being that have not necessarily been regarded as standard within mainstream medical and psychological care, including spiritual, wisdom, indigenous, esoteric, mystical, and Earth-honoring traditions and practices of the world. Additional alternative health perspectives, approaches, and practices relevant to psychological, psychospiritual, and physical health and vitality that are studied include meditation, mindfulness, prayer, contemplation, psychomythology, energy medicine, healthspan and vibrant longevity, hospice work and chaplaincy, guided imagery, clinical hypnosis, Holotropic Breathwork, dreamwork, biofeedback, Enneagram, the arts, and indigenous healing. Students may also explore spirituality and consciousness, including their role in physical, psychological, and psychospiritual resilience and vitality, extended healthspan and robust longevity, personal and professional relationships, organizational functioning, culture, and communities.
Although not intended as preparation for licensure, studies in this Specialization can be applied to the work of psychologists and other licensed mental health professionals. Studies can also be applied to research, scholar-practitioner writing, health care, healthspan innovation and longevity studies, peace work, pastoral care, spiritual counseling, conflict resolution, education, consulting, coaching, mentoring, and/or organizational work.
More program information can be found in our academic catalog.Â
Residential Orientation (RO)
All new students in the M.A. Psychology degree program begin their studies with our one-time, two-day Residential Orientation (RO). Residential Orientations are held two days ahead of the Residential Conference at the start of the fall and spring semesters in California. Attendance at the entire RO is an academic requirement.
At the RO, students become familiar with the Saybrook culture and academic and support services, including online resources, and the library research services and databases. The challenges of distance and peer learning are also discussed during this time. At the RO, students:
- Consult with the Psychology Department chair, specialization coordinators, and an academic adviser to organize their degree plan process.
- Develop a rationale for the scope and sequence of their proposed plan of study.
- Plan what consultation they will need from other faculty.
Residential Conference (RC)
Starting with the fall 2021-2022 academic year, all psychology students will be required to attend only the five-day fall RC each academic year. Although you may complete most of your courses through distance learning, all our psychology degree programs have residential requirements. Residential Conferences (RCs) are academic requirements, and their completion is important for your successful academic progress: they allow you to meet with faculty and co-learners in a stimulating and supportive face-to-face environment. Our RCs are an important part of your learning experience as they nurture intellectual and relational creativity, enrich the educational environment, and foster faculty and peer interactions. There are courses being launched, workshops, independent learning activities, peer learning opportunities, community events, and other hands-on experiences intended to nurture professional development, skill building, and transformative change. All students must be on-site on the registration day and remain in residence until the end of the last day of each required conference.
No academic credit is given for attendance at the RC. Students who attend a seminar at an RC and wish to study the topic further may, with the permission of the seminar instructor and department chair, register for an independent study course (ALL 8100) following the RC and receive 1 academic credit upon completion. Each course is individually designed and negotiated with the seminar instructor. Not all RC workshops, courses, and seminars are eligible for the follow-up independent study credit. Students will need to review their program plan to confirm the 1 credit Independent Study will satisfy degree requirements.
M.A. students are required to attend until formal enrollment in either master thesis or project.
Seminar in Consciousness, Spirituality, and Integrative Health
This course provides an introduction to the primary themes in consciousness, spirituality, and integrative health. The course includes studies in transpersonal psychology as an important way to address these themes. Students will be introduced to foundational definitions, concepts, and theories. This course will also serve to orient students to the Consciousness, Spirituality, and Integrative Health Specialization, including curriculum paths, vocational possibilities, and relevant professional organizations and conferences. It is recommended that students in the Consciousness, Spirituality, and Integrative Health Specialization begin with this course. It provides foundational knowledge that will be built upon in future coursework. Additionally, this course introduces various career paths in order to help students identify, at the outset, the courses that will be most relevant to meeting their future vocational aspirations. Students will also become familiar with various resources that will be useful in their future coursework. 3 credits
Interdisciplinary Foundations for Vibrant Longevity, Part 1
This course will examine theoretical considerations and interdisciplinary research in, as well as evidence-based foundations for, healthspan and vibrant longevity. It will assist students with exploring healthful and vibrant longevity as a biopsychosocial-spiritual phenomenon; as a creative architectural design; and as a meaning-making process, practice, path, and destination. Importantly, this course is designed to (a) enrich students’ scholar-practitioner knowledgebase, vision, values, goals, experiential insight, and self-care and (b) galvanize their emergent/emerging interests germane to contemplating, cultivating, and supporting healthful longevity. 3 credits
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