Courses

Skills for developing helping relationships from a Christian perspective. A problem-management approach to helping: helping theory and skills practice.

An historical and thematic overview of the cognitive science of religion, introducing students to major figures, themes, methods, models, and results from the discipline. A major emphasis is understanding cognitive processes important for sustaining belief in supernatural agents, afterlife beliefs, prayer, and rituals. Students will also investigate the philosophical implications of the scientific data, connecting the cognitive science of religion to issues such as the rationality of religious belief and the lived experience of religious believers.

A thematic overview of evolutionary psychology, introducing students to applications of an evolutionary framework to various aspects of human thought and behavior. Topics surveyed include origins, sex, group cooperation, morality, religion, and cultural group selection. Students will also investigate broader social and philosophical implications of the scientific data, connecting evolutionary psychology to issues such as moral decision making and perspectives on the human person.

This course will introduce students to various traditions of qualitative social inquiry and their associated methodological features. Emphasis will be placed on the practical application of these traditions of inquiry as their associated methods of data collection and analysis are applied in a range of research settings.

Historical roots of modern psychology. Major systems of thought within the discipline in the context of a Christian view of humans and the world.

This course examines a number of significant issues currently under discussion by both academics and thinking people in western culture in the light of key biblical texts relating to them. Issues will include: postmodernism, relativism, pluralism, and cultural diversity, tolerance, truth, euthanasia, stem cell research and the perceived connection between violence and religion.

Students are invited into using the discipline of sociology as a mode of inquiry. Through concepts like the sociological imagination, students experience the social world around them by interacting with the norms, values and beliefs of local and global cultures.

An examination of the basic philosophies and social influences which underlie the helping professions and a brief review of the history of professional human services workers. This course must be completed successfully before a student completes a field placement.

This seminar explores critical issues which occur across the helping professions. Basic questions concerning human nature and the influence of society are examined. This course also serves as a capstone course that helps students culminate their acquired knowledge and prepare for the transition into a Human Services profession.