Psychology

About the Psychology Department

The Psychology Program is shaped by the concept of psychology as a liberal art as well as a rigorous science. To this end, it is engaged in the enterprise of questioning and rethinking the discipline of psychology. This task is approached both through recovering the experiential basis of psychology and through reflection upon the philosophical, historical and cultural traditions that inform psychology. Such a broad and deep understanding of psychology places into perspective both the value and limits of views that claim psychology is the study of mind, or the science of behavior, or the interaction of mind and body, or the personal growth and enrichment of the person. Beyond any one of these psychology as it exists today is primarily a discipline still in search of a clear and unified sense of its subject matter. We in the Psychology Department are dedicated to the project of helping to articulate a viable direction for the discipline of psychology—one that is faithful to its roots in classical philosophy while being informed by more contemporary intellectual traditions. The life of experience, action and the appearance of the world form the material for psychology. Learning the art of speaking truthfully about our experiences is the goal of psychology conceived as a human science. The original sense of the word psychology—the logos of psyche—conveys this sense of the discipline.

The Program relies on this original sense of psychology as a discipline in order to appreciate the manner in which the psyche has been formulated in many different schools of thought. Original writings of important figures in the history of psychological thought are read for their contributions to an understanding of psychological life in the Western traditions.

An attention to a wide range of experiences—dreams, memories, perceptions, psychopathology, language, expression, development, pedagogy, personality—allows the relation of the discipline of psychology to such other disciplines as medicine, anthropology, social history, ethology, philosophy, art, drama and literature to emerge.

This comprehensive approach to psychology is phenomenological in the sense that attention is given to understanding rather than to explanations, to meanings rather than mechanisms of behavior and experience. The approach also draws upon the rich traditions of depth psychology and hermeneutics, giving attention to the deeper meanings of human experience that are carried by imagination and discovered through analysis and interpretation.

Active research and writing is expected of students; original reflection is as important as detailed scholarship. Research seminars during the junior and senior years provide the occasions for students and faculty to work together in close association.

The department has a chapter of Psi Chi, the National Honor Society for psychology. Psi Chi, originally founded in 1929, is an affiliate of the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society. In addition, the department has a Psychology Club, which is open to all undergraduates.

Degrees in Psychology

Bachelor of Arts in Psychology

4 + 1 in Psychology

Course Information

Courses in Psychology