THE ART AND SCIENCE OF HUMAN FLOURISHING

COUNPSY 237

Designed to increase knowledge, awareness, and skills of students interested in working on mental health matters within diverse identity groups and communities. Conceptualize mental health and well-being across communities in terms of (a) intersectional identities (individual and groups), (b) mental health and access and utilization of services, and (c) social determinants of health in different contexts and settings. Engage in reflective exercises to understand how their social identities influence their work in different types of communities.

PSYCH 508

Emotional experience affects and defines every facet of our life, but it seems mysterious and unsuitable for scientific inquiry. Explore how and why emotion is not unsuited to scientific research and provides an in-depth examination of research from all sub-disciplines of the field of Psychology. This includes neuroscience and the biological bases of behavior, questions of the developmental curve for emotional phenomena and the relationship between feeling and thinking, and the study of social groups and culture. Readings and discussion attempt to integrate existent theory and research and apply their implications to the individual, the group, and society.

COUNPSY 372

An academic and experiential introduction to mindfulness meditation framed within the perspective of psychology is provided. Scientific research and modern meditation instructions that have formed the basis of a variety of secular mindfulness-based interventions are reviewed. Readings will adopt a variety of perspectives and methodologies, including conceptual/theoretical work, clinical trials, review articles including meta-analyses (i.e., aggregating findings across studies), and measurement-oriented studies. Key topics include: Buddhist and historical underpinnings of secular mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and similar interventions (e.g., lovingkindness and compassion-based meditation), and empirical literature pertaining to neuroscientific and clinical effects of mindfulness training and related interventions.

RP&SE 310

Introduction to positive psychology, or the science of human strengths, mental health, and well-being. Covers theory and current research on positive psychology including concepts of optimism, flow, gratitude, and purpose in life. Positive psychology concepts are discussed within the context of health promotion, with an emphasis on minimizing the impact of illness and disability. Learn to apply positive psychology concepts in personal and professional contexts to cultivate fulfilling, healthy, and meaningful lives.

INTER-HE 201

This course explores the art and science of purposeful living by integrating academic knowledge with issues real and relevant to students' lives including: identity and belonging; happiness, purpose and meaning; self-awareness and self-presentation; romantic, peer and family relationships; material culture, consumer behavior and financial well-being; and connections to community, culture, and society. From the microbes that inhabit our guts to political revolutions sparked by a tweet, human lives are embedded in an ecology of complex, interdependent systems. Using the lens of Human Ecology, you will address "big questions" like: How am I connected to others and to larger systems? What brings happiness and works for the "greater good" in human lives? An overarching goal of the course is to help you understand yourself as embedded in the web of ever-evolving interconnected networks, an "EcoYou." Human Ecology is a systems approach to studying and understanding relationships between humans and their everyday environments; it is a civic and socially conscious orientation that is committed to understanding and improving the quality of human lives. Human Ecology is inherently interdisciplinary drawing on research, theories and methods from diverse fields such as sociology, psychology, anthropology, economics, public health, biology, and art and design.