Meridian University

PSY 501, 502, 503 Psychopathology I, II, III

Each of us suffers in a unique way. Yet it is interesting and useful to recognize distinct varieties of human suffering without succumbing to the diagnostic illusions of the medical model. These courses pivot around the difference between a medical and a psychological approach to psychopathology. A genuinely psychological approach draws our attention to culture, myth, story, and metaphor as we make meaning of the symptoms we observe. The limits, ambiguities, and cruelties of professionalized responses to human suffering are among our considerations. The impact of differences on diagnosis (such as gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, and class) is also explored as is the DSM IV-TR, the current diagnostic system used in professional psychiatry and psychology. Students are encouraged to cultivate an empathic understanding of the experience of symptoms.

PSY 505, 506, 507, 705 Imaginal Process I, II, III, IV

Imaginal Process is a distinct approach to transformative learning. In this approach, human capacities are cultivated through diversifying, deepening, embodying, and personalizing experience. Imagination amplifies and integrates the sensory, emotional, and cognitive dimensions of our experience. Through the labor of imagination, it is possible to craft our experience towards truth, joy, and effectiveness. This approach reflects an emerging multidisciplinary and multicultural synthesis which can be applied to education, therapy, coaching, organizational change, and the arts. Transformative and initiatory experience requires courage, curiosity, and compassion. Listening deeply to each other’s stories is at the heart of this process. Good listening requires that we inhabit vulnerability, mystery, and complexity. This way of listening engages the empathic imagination in ways that catalyze mutual individuation. This course sequence is an opportunity to experience how a group of individuals, through participation, becomes a collaborative learning community and how each individual becomes more of the person they desire to be.

PSY 508, 509, 510 Somatic Practices I, II, III

Somatic practices have been available within the local knowledge of many traditional and indigenous cultures. The political economics of modern psychology and allopathic medicine have marginalized these great resources for healing and pleasure. In the last 30 years, however, there has been a watershed in the restoration and integration of somatic practices. This course sequence explores the use of somatic practices to reconnect with the sensory foundations of experience. These practices involve movement, touch, and affect regulation all of which support the imagination’s role in integrating the sensory, affective, and cognitive domains of experience. Imagery-based practices enhance mind-body integration, which is key to our effective functioning and well being.

PSY 512 Myth and Contemporary Culture

Wisdom stories reflect a broad range of human concerns. This course explores the psychological functions of the mythic imagination. Initiatory patterns drawn from ancient narratives appear in movies and other cultural forms that reveal our aspirations. Familiar mystery tales and films are examined to study archetypal elements that shape experience, social roles, and social institutions. This course also considers how mythic narratives reflect pluralistic models of psychological life.

PSY 514 Psychology of Dreams

Dreams may be viewed as messages of the soul. Yet, while dreams convey the deeper stirrings of the soul, their language is often baffling to the waking self. This course introduces students to a range of approaches for working with dreams. Students will explore various ways of constructing the relationship between waking and dreaming, and its implications for the individuation process. Approaches and practices for engaging with dreams within contemporary Western psychological systems as well as traditional, non- Western psychological systems, will be considered. Dreaming experience is related to the knowledge domains of Imaginal Psychology, especially mythology, somatic practices, and indigenous wisdom. Students are encouraged to develop practices for tending their dream, in order to access their transformative power. This course seeks to deepen students’ capacity for cultivating, engaging, interpreting, and integrating their own dreams, as well as those of others.

PSY 515 Cultivating the Senses
A psychology concerned with soul must recognize the essential role the body plays in everyday experience. The life of the senses is vital to the nourishment of the soul. This course focuses on the relationship between the physical senses and the life of the imagination. The repression of the senses cripples the imagination, leaving it unable to guide one’s life in nourishing and sustainable ways; traumatic occurrences further disable the body’s way of knowing. Once it is nourished, a well-fed imagination can amplify our senses, aiding us in leading a life that is embodied, passionate, and self-aware. Topics to be explored include the use of language which engenders soul-making, the intelligence of the senses, and the repression of pleasure.

PSY 517, 617 Myth, Ritual, and Story I, II
In most cultures throughout history, individuals have found psychological support and orientation through the myths and stories they inhabit. The vitality of memory depends on engaging myth, ritual, and story in supporting individuals to re-story their lives for initiation into a greater story. This course explores such topics as the archetype of the wounded healer and the significance of initiatory experience.

PSY 520 Culture and the Law
This course considers legal and ethical issues pertaining to the practice of psychological work. Such issues include Tarasoff duty to warn and other mandatory reporting requirements, client suicidality, danger to property, confidentiality and privilege, forensic issues, court testimony, and psychological testing. Also considered are more subtle, ethical concerns such as the encouragement of client dependency, forms of psychotherapists’ financial greed, the use of language which serves to mystify clients’ suffering, the objectification of clients, and ethical dilemmas involved in the provision of psychotherapy in both the private-pay and managed-care economies. Emphasis is given on how the helping professional’s shadow issues can influence both psychotherapy and other helping relationships, and the importance of being aware of one’s own shadow issues.

PSY 521, 522, 621, 622, 721 Psychotherapy Craft I, II, III, IV, V
This course sequence reimagines the practice of psychotherapy as a craft and explores the most basic instrument of psychotherapy, the self of the therapist. Each course seeks to integrate theoretical material with students’ personal exploration.

I: Introduction and Overview
This course begins to hone particular skills and capacities fundamental to facilitating individuation. These skills and capacities include: deep listening, empathic communication, recognition of multiplicity, and creatively interfacing with professional language and procedures such as diagnosis and treatment planning. Additional topics and issues considered include: transference, countertransference, holding the container, minding the ebb and flow of affect and attachment, and otherwise negotiating the interactive field.

II: Becoming a Psychotherapist
This course explores how the student’s personal history and psychological development have converged in the call to become a psychotherapist. Topics include personal motivations, family-of-origin issues, imaginal structures, stages in the development of the therapist, and self and other shame-awareness.

III: Crafting the Therapist’s Self
This course investigates the practices involved in crafting those aspects of the self which are a necessity for good work. Included are the importance of presence, the listening self, and the role of ongoing work with counter-transference issues.

IV: Hazards of the Profession of Psychotherapy
This course examines the potential difficulties which can arise in both the work life and the personal life of the therapist as a result of practicing therapy over several years. Such difficulties may include: physical and psychic isolation, grandiosity, self-deception, bodily inactivity, boundary problems, client exploitation, negative impact on one’s personal relationships, and financial confusion, which can result in greed or self-sacrifice. Special attention is given to practical strategies for avoiding these kinds of problems.

V: Termination in Psychotherapy
The effective completion of the termination phase of psychotherapy is an essential and important part of the work. This course addresses loss, separation, dependence, and death as existential issues which, at various times, are both foreground and backdrop to the psychological relationship approaching its ending.

PSY 525 Ecology and the Arts
For millennia humans have expressed their relationship to nature through the arts. The 12,000 to 30,000 year-old images in the caves of Lascaux and Chauvet as well as the 100,000 year-old painted walls of Arnhem Land are a staggering testimony to this. Civilization, and in particular the modern world, have profoundly disturbed our connectedness to this prior mode of dwelling in embedded balance. Human cultures have gone from embeddedness in nature to alienation from nature. The traditions suggest that the psyche is not inside us, but rather that we dwell in psyche. The arts can cultivate the ecological imagination and can help restore an engaged, respectful, and animated dwelling. This course explores the psychological significance of rekindling our participation in nature through the arts.

PSY 532, 632 Group Process I, II
We live our lives in the company of others. Identity is formed partly through being recognized by others—one’s spouse, family, friends, neighborhood, and workplace. Groups offer us a context in which to explore the mystery of identity and to evolve a mode of communication that honors individuality and multiplicity. It is commonplace in groups to deny, trivialize, and suppress differences. Instead, we must learn to recognize and relate to differences. Particular dynamics in groups that may be considered include: leadership, scapegoating, envy, betrayal, trust, selfdisclosure, cult dynamics, feedback, team building, and support. Group facilitation skills relevant to psychological practice, the contemporary workplace, and creating community are especially emphasized.

PSY 545 Modern Consciousness and Indigenous Wisdoms
The stories of indigenous peoples provide inspiration for a mythic imagination that attempts to address the crises of modern consciousness. This course explores how indigenous wisdom can appear differently, depending on the particular self-construction in which we happen to be engaged. Understanding the history of the self gives us access to a relationship with native knowing that does not appropriate, but instead engages in a moral discourse which seeks healing through integrative states of consciousness, including the painful awareness of collective shadow material. Healing our contemporary pathologies and suffering in ways that transcend individualistic paradigms, without romanticizing native people, will be considered. The intent is to narrate ourselves freely in the face of historical dissociations and denied aspects of ourselves and our communities.

PSY 613 Psychology of Conflict
This course explores issues in the field of peace psychology: peace, conflict, and violence. Topics include direct violence, structural violence, non-violence, peace-making, peace-building, and social justice. Students will develop skills in facilitating the recognition and engagement of differences necessary for creative collaboration and cultural transformation.

PSY 614 Psychology of Trauma
Our planet continues to suffer from the traumatic impact of increasingly complex methods of human-engineered destruction, as well as the varieties of far more ordinary moments which are too overwhelming for us to integrate. This course explores current issues in the field of psychological trauma through personal, historical, cultural, and archetypal perspectives. Its intent is to develop the student’s ability to engage traumatic material experienced through the kinds of fragmented images that are the common aftermath of overwhelming experience. In this course, we will work to create possibilities for remaining active participants in lifelong, awe-inspiring events.

PSY 618 Psychotherapy with Children
This course introduces the process and practice of child therapy, as well as the use of diagnostic tools and play materials. The course also addresses child abuse assessment, treatment, and reporting laws. The social and ecological influences that impact child development and treatment are explored, as are the incidence of child abuse, child victimization, and child exploitation. Also addressed are collateral work with parents and professionals, and additional legal and ethical issues pertaining to working with children.

PSY 625 Ecstatic States and Culture
The use of mind-altering substances to alter states of consciousness has been a part of the human experience since prehistoric times. Modernization and urbanization have made our relationship with state-altering substances more problematic. This course is an overview of the assessment and treatment of substance abuse and dependence. This course utilizes myth, current psychological models, and our own experience to develop an integrated view of addiction that considers biology, psychology, cultural considerations, and human yearning. Issues regarding the use and abuse of drugs and alcohol will be explored within the contexts of culture and the human need for ecstatic experience.

PSY 628, 629, 630 Psychotherapy Integration I, II, III
The beginning psychotherapist is faced with a wide array of approaches to psychotherapy. This sequence considers the diversity of psychotherapeutic approaches and develops our own coherence as psychotherapists. The first course in the sequence surveys a variety of approaches to individual psychotherapy. The second course examines several major approaches to couples therapy and includes an emphasis on spousal or partner abuse assessment, detection, and intervention. The third course surveys approaches to family therapy, exploring family conflicts through a broader social and historical context which includes an awareness of culture, class, gender, race, and religion.

PSY 635 Expressive Arts in Groups
This course focuses on the use of visual arts and movement in groups. Implications and applications for group therapeutic work are considered. Additionally, experiential processes are used to gain awareness of how we conduct our lives, and how we use images to inspire and direct our own living.

PSY 637, 638, 639 Research Methods I, II, III
Understanding research studies and their conclusions can be a vital aspect of a psychological practitioner’s continuing education. This course prepares students to understand and engage with psychological research by emphasizing critical thinking in evaluating research studies, enabling students to discriminate valid, relevant data from faulty, inconclusive data. Additionally, we will ask specific questions about the culture of psychological research by examining such areas as the relationship between soul and research, the construction of psychological theory, the competing claims of quantitative versus qualitative research, and various research paradigms.

PSY 640 Human Sexuality
This course considers the varying ways that individuals experience their sexual selves, sexual behavior, and sexual orientation, as well as how the sexual self develops within different historical and cultural settings. The influence of class, gender, age, culture, and family background on sexual experience is also explored, as are assessment and treatment of sexual dysfunction.

PSY 642, 643 Human Development I, II
Psychological work often involves assisting children, adults, and elders through the joint processes of growing up and growing older as they traverse predictable and non-predictable passages of the life cycle. We are best prepared to assist others through their lives when we ourselves are well-grounded in both the objective context of the human development literature and the subjective experience of journeying through our own lives. The first course in the sequence explores infancy through mid-life. The second course examines the complex issues involved in aging and long-term care.

PSY 645 Cross-Cultural Perspectives
A psychology arising exclusively out of western European academic experience fails to adequately respond to the rich varieties of human experience. This course gathers contemporary multicultural sources, as well as the wisdom of indigenous cultures, to educate psychological practitioners to be responsive to each person’s unique cultural heritage. An understanding of cultural differences within couples, family, and community institutions is critical to professional practice.

PSY 647, 747 Psychological Assessment I, II
This course sequence provides an introduction and overview to psychological assessment. Developing an understanding of overall assessment procedures and learning how to administer, score, and interpret a variety of psychological tests are emphasized.


Psychological Assessment I provides a survey of the major testing instruments including the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III (WAIS-III), the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-IV (WISC-IV), Rorschach Inkblot Test, TAT, and the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). This helps to establish a basic understanding of different tests, applications, and procedures. Additionally, the course provides particular focus on personality testing, through both personality and projective measures. Tests studied include the Rorschach; MMPI; the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory (MCMI), as well as others. Experiential opportunities pertaining to the process of test taking are also offered.

Psychological Assessment II focuses on intellectual and cognitive testing, primarily through the study of the WAIS-III and the WISC-IV. Additionally, students are introduced to the basics of neuropsychological screening. Students also learn to prepare a report integrating personality and intelligence factors.

PSY 655, 755, 855 Integrative Seminar I, II, III
The Integrative Seminar has several goals: to provide a setting where the various strands of Meridian’s curriculum can be woven together; to facilitate the curriculum’s transformative intent; to facilitate the students’ evolving relationship to the discipline and profession of psychology; and to support the students’ development of psychological awareness and flexibility. In addition, the Integrative Seminar provides time to address interpersonal and group process issues that emerge in tending to a learning community.

PSY 698 Field Placement
Field Placement is designed to help students identify a preliminary direction for their fieldwork and offers practical assistance on how to find, secure, and complete appropriate fieldwork placements. Students are aided in formulating a potential plan for fieldwork that will further their career goals. Issues discussed include the goals of fieldwork, the pros and cons of having fieldwork fulfill licensing board hours, and the use of one’s job at an internship site. Students not pursuing clinical licensure are guided in arranging alternative field placements. Time frames and procedures for applying to and completing internships are discussed, and roleplaying is used to explore the interview process. In addition, students develop an understanding of State of California licensing board regulations and how to complete necessary forms.

PSY 699 Supervised Fieldwork
Supervised fieldwork is an integral aspect of study at Meridian. Students earn supervised fieldwork units through the performance of job activities in paid and volunteer positions. Beginning with the Field Placement course, students are guided in designing and implementing a fieldwork plan to advance their development as psychological practitioners. The Academic Services Coordinator assists students in initiating appropriate placements and monitors the progress of students’ specific fieldwork goals.

PSY 713 Psychology of Metaphor
In ancient Greek, the word metaphor meant “transformer.” Through the use of metaphor, our perception operates at a deeper level of understanding. This course explores how metaphors form the foundation of our thinking, influencing our learning and growth by presenting a variety of perspectives that elucidate the aesthetic realm of everyday life. Particular themes include discerning ideas at deeper levels, metaphor as a tool for personal learning and social change, and exploring the principle of learning as being a process of entering into conversation with the subject matter, one’s self, and the larger communal world. Exploring the rich ways in which metaphorical images can enrich and enhance our relationship to ourselves and others, we are then able to view life through the lens of metaphor and to see possibilities and potentials that we might not see otherwise.

PSY 724 Foundations of Somatic Psychotherapy
Somatic psychotherapy has its roots in depth psychology, and before that, in ancient somatic practices. This course is a survey of the history, theories, and techniques of Somatic Psychotherapy. Key ideas such as character, grounding, boundaries, embodiment, and presence are explored. In addition, the pivotal role of imagination in Somatic Psychotherapy is considered.

PSY 740 Introduction to Psychopharmacology
The circumstances of contemporary clinical practice require practitioners to understand the effective and discerning use of psychoactive medications. As such, this course provides an introduction and overview to psychopharmacology. This course reviews the different classes of prescription drugs and their judicious use relative to the context of psychotherapy as well as how to collaborate effectively with prescribing physicians and other health care providers.

PSY 741 Learning and Cognition
Historically, the psychology of learning subfield has neglected and trivialized the human experience of learning, through its exclusive focus on classical and operant learning in non-human species. This course explores human learning in relation to developmental theory, cognitive science, and general systems theory. Analogies to learning in organizations and other human systems will also be considered.

PSY 742 Ecopsychology
Humans have the capacity to live in balance and reciprocity with the land, yet we find ourselves at the beginning of the 21st century in the midst of a broken relationship which causes great suffering for both people and the Earth. Ecopsychology, the psychology of ecological transformation, explores ways to heal this disconnection, broadening our experience of human well-being to include our relationship with the “more than human” world.

PSY 743 Biological Bases of Human Experience
This course surveys selected topics in physiological psychology, psychophysiology, and psychoneuroimmunology. The effort is to explore biological and psychological correspondences without being reductionistic. Contemporary research challenging our current understanding of psychological well-being and maturity is also reviewed.

PSY 744, 844 Psychology and Community Making I, II
We live in a time of immense longing for community and beauty. The social structures that maintain individualism are crumbling. However, the new convivial forms that would support us are only partially in place. Most of us heroically struggle in isolation much of the time. The ideology of professionalism reinforces this isolated self-reliance. How might we transform such a culture of privatism and cruelty to a culture of participation and accountability? Psychological practitioners are in a position to make significant contributions to the revitalization of culture. Can we re-imagine professional work in ways that support the creation of communities?

PSY 750 History of Psychology
There is no consistent, agreed upon, or neutral history of psychology. The illusion of neutrality is an aspect of scientism in which psychology, as both a discipline and a profession, is still entangled. The intent of this course is to situate Imaginal Psychology in relation to important historical and theoretical issues in psychology. We can make sense of these issues by locating our own interests and orientation to psychology at this historical moment, and by articulating our stance in relation to other orientations and historical periods. Reviewing the history of psychology versus situating psychology historically, are distinct but interrelated tasks. The intention of this course is to clarify, differentiate, and activate our relationship to psychology as a discipline and profession.

PSY 751, 752, 753 Imaginal Inquiry I, II, III
Imaginal Inquiry is a research methodology anchored within the participatory paradigm of research, which recognizes participative consciousness as our true nature. Imaginal Inquiry applies Imaginal Process, Meridian’s approach to cultivating human capacities, to psychological research. These capacities include reflexivity, collaborativity, and empathic imagination. Imaginal Inquiry draws upon these capacities in emphasizing the roles of imagination, participation, and reflexivity in research. Researchers using this methodology are called upon to access and create knowledge that ordinarily may be restricted by the cultural prescriptions that shape our personal identities. This approach to research expands the possibilities for taking actions which can create new meaning, helping to revitalize personal and cultural transformation.

PSY 754 Health Psychology
This course introduces the field of Health Psychology, the role of the psychologist in medicine, and the psychologist’s participation in the treatment and prevention of health-related issues. Emphasis is placed on the complex issue of mind-body relationships and on expanding the role of social, environmental, biological, and psychological factors in understanding the development of disease states, and their treatment.

PSY 805, 806, 807, 808 Research Practicum I, II, III, IV
Research Practicum provides a setting to apply principles of qualitative research to the development of dissertations and clinical case studies, and gives students the opportunity to have a hands-on experience of developing elements of the dissertation and clinical case study. This course also provides students with an experience of the possibilities of collaborative research and writing.

PSY 809 Advanced Clinical Practicum
This course provides an introduction to time-limited psychotherapies, as well as practical experience with several time-limited methods, including those from cognitive-behavioral and solution-oriented approaches. The sociopolitical context of time-limited psychotherapy’s development and its inherent ethical and transference/counter-transference dilemmas are also explored.

PSY 813 Psychology of Evil
All cultures have developed their own conception of good and evil. Yet, the study of the nature of evil has often been forbidden. As evil has evolved and increased in complexity in our time, there is an urgent necessity to try and understand this phenomenon, as those who are attracted to manifest evil are able to manufacture and employ increasingly dangerous weaponry, both literally and psychologically. This course probes the reality of destructive archetypal forces that threaten us all and the possibility of developing our own creativity to engage these forces. Students will enhance their capacities to encounter evil and perhaps begin to find ways to contain its malignancy.

PSY 814 Psychology of Love and Intimacy
The longing for love and intimacy is our deepest human yearning. Yet many people pass through life deeply unfulfilled. This course explores what needs to happen within one’s self and between others for a climate of love and intimacy to be created. The psychological underpinnings necessary for mature love, while retaining an appreciation for love’s mystery, are also examined. Recent research will help illuminate basic principles that lead to fulfilling relationships.

PSY 815 Sandplay Therapy
This course is an introduction to the theory and practice of sandplay. The healing value of symbols and ritual, the therapist’s role as witness, and the experience of co-transference in non-verbal, symbolic play will be emphasized and explored. Archival case material is presented to illustrate the psyche’s movements in sandplay, as well as to address issues in clinical practice.

PSY 816 Expressive Arts in Therapy
This course focuses on traditional ways of healing through the arts. Use of the expressive arts in psychotherapy allows for depth, even when therapy has to be brief. In the spirit of multiplicity, our work will focus on many forms of art, as well as on the intermodal transfers between them. Through the shaping of art, students work towards developing the facility for following the image in its many manifestations, and to deepen their ability to help clients explore and create experience.

PSY 817 Psychology and Religion
This course explores the crossroad where psychology and religion converge and diverge in the life of the soul. Course topics include the phenomenology of numinous experience, shadow and evil, and the evolutionary role of ritual.

PSY 819 Ecology, Culture, and Pluralism
Psychologists can make significant contributions towards healing modernity’s cultural trauma. Revitalizing our culture towards community, beauty, conviviality, and sustainability requires that we embrace a pluralist vision which recognizes the necessity of difference and interdependence. Pluralizing of our own identity is an essential element in reimagining and revitalizing our culture. We will consider how a culture of conviviality and pluralized identity can reconstitute personal responsibility. Topics explored may include home, money, food, violence, gender, and sexuality.

PSY 820 Art Psychotherapy
The ancient remnants of human art-making are perhaps the clearest evidence that our ancestors were connected to a world larger than their own physical environment. This invisible world is as relevant today as it was in the time of our origins. We know this world not through logic, but through the doorways of imagery and our own felt sense of what is true. This course is an inquiry into the world of images that are the direct result of suffering. Supported by recent theories on trauma, we will explore some of the implications of using art psychotherapeutic interventions to respond to a range of suffering from the ‘loss of meaning’ to the experience of ‘speechless terror’ to deepening and recreating an integrated self. In this way, we will develop an understanding of how images associated with suffering can be the doorway to images that heal and replenish the art maker.

PSY 821 Culture and Consciousness
Everyday life within modernity has been a wasteland for many. Emptiness, depression, and busyness are familiar states, rather than the fullness of being. In previous centuries, the sacred was experienced in everyday life. Societies were organized around rituals which bound the lives of individuals to a religious worldview. In contemporary secular cultures, finding one’s relationship to the sacred sadly becomes the task and challenge of the individual. Essential to a culture of participation is animism as a mode of perception. This course explores the role of animism in the co-evolution of culture and consciousness. Several key texts are reviewed which offer psychological and historical perspectives on Western approaches to the sacred. The course focus is on the Italian Renaissance as an example of the convergence of art, religion, and science, within a past culture where the animated image vitalized both culture and consciousness.

PSY 822 Families and Culture
This advanced family therapy course emphasizes issues of culture, ethnicity, and race. Clinical interventions with different populations and the ways in which culture influences family function and dysfunction will be explored. Religion, class, community, extended family networks, and immigration are examined as important factors in how families adapt to changing situations. This course also focuses on how the clinician’s and the client’s cultural frames of reference interact with one another.

PSY 825 Somatics for Psychotherapists
The use of somatics in psychotherapy is a growing trend. Whether used directly or indirectly in one’s work, somatics has valuable contributions to make for the increased effectiveness of psychotherapy. This course focuses on approaches to somatics in psychotherapy, the use of somatic principles in psychotherapeutic assessment, the role of somatics in the therapeutic process, and ethical considerations in somatics. Students will experience different aspects of somatics in psychotherapy and begin to develop their own personal approach.

PSY 830 Research Writing
Good research writing integrates conceptual precision with passion. This course emphasizes the practice and development of proficient and enjoyable psychological writing, providing students the opportunity to work collaboratively towards enhancing their research writing capabilities.

PSY 833 Transformative Power of Ritual
Ritual is a necessity. As the lungs breathe, so does the soul ritualize. Ritual has an essential role in tending relationships, families, communities, and even workplaces. The origins of art and religion are in ritual; to ritualize is to make sacred. Our ancestors knew that life is unbearable without ritual. This course explores the creative and transformative uses of ritual in our everyday lives. Potential themes for the course include ritual in times of conflict, crisis, and illness; ritual and sexual experience; and ritual and temporary madness.

PSY 835, 836, 837 Cultural Leadership I, II, III
This course explores the possibility and viability of cultural leadership as a form of leadership distinct from political and administrative leadership. The integrated theory of personal and cultural transformation in practice at Meridian offers psychological practitioners specific principles and practices that can serve as actionable knowledge for cultural leadership. Cultural leadership is constituted by principled actions which create new and unexpected meanings. Cultural leaders catalyze individuating participation and re-imagine past and future within the groups and communities to which they belong.

PSY 838 Psychotherapy and the Arts
This course deepens our understanding of the relationship of art to psychology. Using an experiential format in which themes are explored through various media, students learn about theories, traditions, methodologies, and professional issues involved in combining psychotherapy with the arts. Students will use the expressive arts therapies and dreamwork to explore the use of image, symbol, and ritual in their own personal process and into implications for clinical work, research, and creating ritual. The specific professions of art, movement, music, and drama therapies will be discussed.

PSY 856 Professional Seminar
Imaginal Psychology, as an orientation to psychology, has deep roots in the earliest vocations associated with healing and transformative practices. It is important for students of Imaginal Psychology to have effective ways of communicating its principles and practices in their professional work. Students who do not learn how to effectively negotiate the interface with the profession (and conventional culture in general) could find themselves marginalized and trivialized. This course considers such questions as: How can we engage with the culture and the profession as a whole, so that the people we serve are empowered, not infantilized? How can we revitalize the culture in ways that liberate the soul’s passionate nature? The Professional Seminar facilitates clarifying and articulating the student’s relationship to psychology as a discipline, a vocation, and a profession.