Charter

During the 20th Century many disciplines grew increasingly autonomous, and with the rise of logical positivism and related empirically-oriented perspectives, practitioners in many physical and behavioral sciences tended to divorce themselves from all but the most seemingly “scientific” of disciplines. Using the so-called “scientific methods” of physics, astronomy and chemistry, practitioners in the fields of biology, psychology, anthropology, sociology, economics and political science confined themselves to rather trivial questions and constrained their observations of the world in order to remain “objective,” “detached” and “analytic.” These biological and behavioral science practitioners not only divorced themselves from the humanities and many of the professions, they also tended to be suspicious of one another, seeking to join physics, astronomy and chemistry at the top of the disciplinary pecking order.

Now, at the beginning of the 21st Century, there is an epistemological revolution that brings many of these estranged fields back into conversation with one another. This is occurring not only because many of the behavioral and biological sciences have themselves come to the end of the road with regard to the confining “scientific method,” but also because epistemology is itself undergoing profound change. There is the revolution of chaos and complexity in the physical and behavioral sciences, the introduction of radical concepts regarding time and causality in cosmology, the shattering of the analytic (“smashed rat”) tradition in the biological sciences, and the postmodern challenging of interpretative traditions in the humanities and behavioral sciences.

The Professional School of Psychology offers a pedagogical door into this new world. As a portal, PSP exemplifies an optimism about the future and a turning to appreciation and images of success and accomplishment when faced with the challenge of profound personal, organizational and societal transformation. As Martin Seligman notes in the opening article of the first issue of the American Psychologist in the 21 st Century, this new century is a time for psychologists to investigate and grow wise about not only the fears and delusions of humankind (the primary task of 20 th Century psychology), but also the hopes and dreams of humankind that enable men and women to sustain their efforts and search for a better life, despite their individual and collective fears and delusions.

The graduate degree programs of the Professional School of Psychology are intended for motivated mature learners who wish to expand their own conceptual horizons and to integrate greater self-understanding with a more profound appreciation for the complexity, unpredictability and turbulence of our contemporary world landscape. This is not a “university without walls.” Rather it is a “university with moveable walls.” It is the intent that those enrolled will design, in company with select faculty members, a specific program of scholarship, research and practice that is aligned with each participant’s own shifting career goals and life purposes.