Master of Arts in Psychology

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Grounded in the existential phenomenological and humanistic traditions of psychology, the Master of Arts in Psychology (MAP) program offers students strong clinical training to become conselors and therapists serving the needs of diverse communities. The program adopts a rigorous interdisciplinary focus on the qualitative and relational dimensions of clinical work. It trains students to attend to both the role of individual and social meaning-making in experiences of mental illness and healing. By laying a strong foundation for therapeutic work, the program prepares students to work as licensed mental helth counselors in the State of Washington, and/or to go on to pursue doctoral studies. It embraces the humanist ethos of working with people in-depth, of respecting the complexity of human experience and motives. Informed by the philosophical traditions of existentialism, phenomenology and hermeneutics, the program seeks to train students to aside prejudgments and assumptions about each individual client’s needs and lives. While providing training in DSM-based assessment and a range of therapeutic approaches and techniques, the MAP program seeks, first and foremost, to train students to be fully present to their clients, to listen well to them, with deep ethical commitment, and to help clients explore and clarify the meanings and values that animate, guide and sustain them in their lives.