Course Catalogue 2024-2025

This course provides participants with an introduction to spiritually integrated cognitive-behavioural therapy. At the conclusion of this course, through lectures, discussions, in-vivo exercises, and graded submissions, students will have learned how to assess and treat various mental health pathologies by eliciting and changing clientsˇ automatic thoughts and negative schemas using evidence-based CBT interventions such as case conceptualizations, structuring and psychoeducation, thought records, core belief records, Socratic questioning, behavioural experiments, depression and anxiety inventories, activity scheduling, fear ladders, and graded exposures. Unlike a purely secular CBT approach that leaves no room for clientsˇ spiritual beliefs, this course will emphasize how CBT can be enhanced when understood through the lens of contemporary spiritual care best practices. Participants in this course will first become acquainted with how to understand spirituality and religion through a CBT lens, then learn and practice how to enhance the effectiveness of CBT by integrating a working knowledge of spiritual care issues with established CBT interventions to treat anxiety, depression, grief and loss, panic disorder, social phobias, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Special attention will also be paid to employing established CBT interventions to treat the significant rise and proliferation of viral pandemic-related anxiety and depression.

This course will examine professional ethics in the helping professions (esp. spiritual care, psycho-spiritual therapy and social service) in order to further equip students for competence in their chosen field. We will consider the philosophical/theological moorings for professional ethics and the need for congruence in belief, thought, word and deed. Students will examine their own belief systems in relation to ethical practice and construct means by which to embed ethical practice within theses systems. They will deepen their understanding of the intrinsic link between ethical practice and self awareness and assess areas of growth in this regard. Professional codes of ethics (Professional Practice Standards CRPO, CASC Code of Ethics, etc.) will be assessed as the minimum standard for the profession. These codes as well as best practices in the field will be practiced in class. Attention to ethical practice in contexts of diversity is central to course.

This course provides spiritual caregivers with an overview of essential models of psychotherapy using Peter VanKatwyk's (2003) Therapeutic Strategies Map as an orienting framework. Insights from psychotherapeutic theory, sensitively and responsibly applied, enhance the practice of spiritual care. The overview provides a foundation for students who wish to study a particular model in depth and who wish to integrate these concepts into their practice through a supervised learning process. Knowledge of psychotherapeutic theories will also assist spiritual and pastoral providers in making necessary referrals when client needs are outside their scope of practice.

This course provides spiritual caregivers with an overview of essential models of psychotherapy using Peter VanKatwyk's (2003) Therapeutic Strategies Map as an orienting framework. Insights from psychotherapeutic theory, sensitively and responsibly applied, enhance the practice of spiritual care. The overview provides a foundation for students who wish to study a particular model in depth and who wish to integrate these concepts into their practice through a supervised learning process. Knowledge of psychotherapeutic theories will also assist spiritual and pastoral providers in making necessary referrals when client needs are outside their scope of practice.

This course will introduce central theoretical concepts in psychoanalytic psychotherapy and their importance in effective clinical work. An underlying premise of the course is that therapeutic action occurs within the relationship between therapist and patient, two individuals who struggle together to reclaim and deepen their shared humanity. While theory is essential to the task of providing responsible clinical care, it is understood that it always follows deeply attentive, empathic observation, not only of the patient, but of the psychodynamic processes that occur between the therapist and patient. Theory helps to hold and contain the therapist as she enters the unique, often strange and at times disturbing inner world of the person who seeks her help. Theory must always be held lightly while it is actively operative in the mind of the therapist as he navigates his way through the world that emerges within the analytic setting. A solid grounding in psychodynamic theory helps the therapist maintain a calm receptivity to the patient in the midst of unknowing, which most often characterizes the immediacy of clinical work. It also helps the therapist cultivate and sustain a reflective use of herself that establishes a safe and supportive professional framework that holds and protects both parties in the clinical dyad.

Experiencing worry and anxiety are a normal part of living. Intense worry and anxiety tends to interfere with our ability to cope by causing problems in our daily living, negatively affecting our relationships, thoughts and beliefs, ability to work or play, and spiritual self. Excessive anxiety is life limiting until we discover healthy means to manage intense emotions. This course will offer helping professionals an understanding of the therapeutic principles of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CST) as applied to the experience of anxiety. Students will gain an understanding of two recent modalities of CST, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DST) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and how these therapies engage worry and anxiety. Students are required to enter this course with a foundational understanding of CST. Spiritual and theological understandings of worry and anxiety will be discussed in addition to applying CST and ACT to the spiritually-oriented client.

Reconciliation in the Church today; a practical "case approach" to the ministry of sacramental reconciliation; art of the confessor.

This entry-level-to-practice, interdisciplinary course will examine the phenomenology of trauma as it impinges on human beings (individuals, families, cultural groups) from a bio-psycho-social-spiritual model of care. Special consideration given to contemporary, evidence-based treatments from a range social science disciplines, as well a credible intervention practices from religious and spiritual traditions- such as mindfulness, hoping-building, meaning-making, and forgiveness protocols- and their potential roles in healing of both direct and vicarious forms of trauma. The following major areas will be explored: 1) Trauma in Childhood, Adolescence, and the Family; 2) Trauma and Disrupted Attachment Relationships; 3) Trauma as Health Crisis {Physical and Mental); 4} Trauma and Women; 5) Trauma as Socio-Historical Events, such as: a) Natural Disasters, b) Terrorism and War Conflicts; c) Cultural Genocide, Religious Persecution and Refugees, d) Cultural Oppression and Victimization of First Nations Peoples; 6) Trauma and Resiliency. Throughout the course will be the pervasive themes of the self-care of the clinician, and the fostering of client resource through spiritual, family and community resources, leading to healing and posttraumatic growth

This course explores psycho-spiritual work with dreams from a Jungian (analytical) psychological perspective. Because Jungian psychology is adaptable with any number of religious traditions, an intrqduction to the role of dreams within Buddhism, Christianity and Islam will be a part of the course. Working with dreams will help students to learn to work with a methodology that has been developed by Jungian psychologists. To supplement work with dreams, an understanding of key Jungian concepts to be presented include the SELF as a God-image, archetypal energy, the personal and collective unconscious, the journey of individuation as a spiritual process. The goal of this course is to help students to be better prepared to work with the dreams of clients/congregants for whom they care at a depth level and particularly during times of heightened stress or end of life.

The course is designed to expose students to the rich religious diversity of the city and to the categories of hospitality, encounter, and dialogue that are becoming part and parcel of theology today. The course is divided into 3 parts. The first part introduces students to various theologies of religion and dialogue that have emerged since the Second Vatican Council. The second part of the course includes visits to other religious groups on the UofT campus and neighboring areas. The on-site visits will introduce students to non-Christian prayer and liturgy, sacred space, social action and educational programs of other faiths that are flourishing in the city of Toronto. A last part of the course invites student to reflect on their interfaith experiences toward articulating a personal spirituality and theology of encounter and dialogue.

This course provides students opportunities to demonstrate the MPS outcomes, CASC and entry-to-practice CRPO competencies. Early in the semester, in consultation with professor and small group members, students will develop a learning covenant to identify specific learning goals, including a bibliography and process/timeline for achieving identified goals. The goals will be established in relation to their learning through the program based on their ability to demonstrate the MPS Outcomes, CRPO and/or CASC/ACSS Competencies. The course will culminate in 4 papers which will be merged into one large paper and submitted at the end of the course. In the assignments students will articulate and give evidence for their safe and effective use of self, the psycho-spiritual theory base for their practice and will demonstrate integration of their spiritual care/psycho-spiritual practice into a theological/spiritual/religious framework.

This course is a study of the interaction of psychology and religion in mental health: well-being, disorder, and adjustment. It will discuss the psychoneurological, psychological, social and faith dynamics in the development and maintenance of well-being and of psychopathology. Its focus, therefore, will be psychology and religion's contribution and interaction in both disorder and health.