Previous Offerings
The Center for Psychological Humanities & Ethics hosts and co-sponsors events to engage the public and academic community. Read more about our past conferences and events and email psychumanities@bc.edu with any questions.
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Archived CE Offerings
We offer lectures and workshops that promote conversations on human identity, suffering, and potential, with particular concern for the enduring ethical questions at the heart of human existence.
Many of our offerings provide continuing education (CE's) for psychologists (APA), licensed mental health counselors (LMHC), and licensed independent/clinical social workers (LI/LCSW).聽
The Vibrant Center: An Urgent Consciousness for Our Divided Times
Kirk J. Schneider, Ph.D.
October 2026
Melanie Klein: Theory and Practice
Jason Jones, MD
September 2026 - March, 2027
Poetry for Clinicians: Poems that Facilitate Emotional Connection
Sandra Buechler, Ph.D.
September, 2026
Recovering Humanism: Renaissance Perspectives on the Human Psyche
Matthew Clemente
June-July, 2026
Creative Writing For Clinicians
William J. Hendel, JD
May-July 2026
Minding Our Stories, Storying Our Minds: Rachel Aviv on Stories That Heal and Stories That Constrain
Rachel Aviv and Justin Karter, PhD
April, 2026
Narrative Medicine for Clinicians
Danielle Spencer, Ph.D.
April, 2026
The Transformative Landscape of Suffering: Concepts, Evidence, and Implications
Richard G. Cowden, Ph.D.
March, 2026
Stories of Redemption and Acceptance in American Lives
Dan P. McAdam
March, 2026
Writing Short Stories: Psychological Fiction and the Problems of Finitude
February to May, 2026
William J. Hendel, JD and Kyleigh Leddy, LMSW
Bearing Loss: Psychoanalytic and Literary Perspectives
Dr. Sandra Buechler
Jan to May, 2026
Creative Non-Fiction for Clinicians: A 2 Day In-Person Workshop
Derek Hook
January 2026
ATTENSITY! Human Attention, Solidarity, and Radical World-remaking
D. Graham Burnett
November 6, 2025
Riding with Oedipus: On the Other Side of the Middle Passage
Hortense Spillers
September 18, 2025
Freud the Philosopher: Rethinking Psychology's Most Provocative Thinker
Matthew Clemente
September, 2025 - May, 2026
Development, Therapy, and Ethics
Jason Jones, MD
September 2025 - December 2025
D.W. Winnicott: Development, Therapy, and Ethics
Jason Jones, MD
September 2025 - December 2025
Polyphonic Suffering: Reading Shakespeare to Respond to Illness
Arthur Frank
March 12, 2025
Awakening Wonder: Teaching Philosophy to Teens and Tweens in Texas
Claire Katz
February 20, 2025
Human Strivings in William Shakespeare and Erich Fromm
Sandra Buechler
January-May, 2025
Emerson for Clinicians: Forging the American Psyche
Matthew Clemente
January-May, 2025
There is No Place For Us: Working and Homeless in America
Brian Goldstone
Love & Ideology
Orna Guralnik
Kierkegaard for Clinicians: Finitude, Despair, and the Absurdity of Hope
Matthew Clemente
The Hermeneutics of Attention
D. Graham Burnett
Practical Wisdom in the Professions
Kristja虂n Kristja虂nsson
Neo-fascism and the Unregulated Body: sites of persecution and resistance
Sue Grand
Law, Psychology, and Healing: Exploring Racial, Ethnic, and LGBTQ+ Representation in Education
Hector Adames, Maryam Jernigan-Noesi, & Mary Kelly Persyn
The Fascist Turn: Race and Gender in Totalitarian Regimes
Sue Grand, Komal Choksi
Flourishing in the Digital Age
Tom Harrison
Melancholic Joy In An Age Of Despair
Brian Treanor
Erring Together: Some Notes On Distortion, Art, And Others
Ben Lerner
Non-Reductive Psychological Accounts of Religious Experience
Ariel Glucklich
Navigating Inequity and Advancing Equitable Change at Scale
Kimberlyn Leary
On Care in Mental Health: Suffering, Healing, and the Human Condition
Arthur Kleinman
Gender Transition Between Life and Death
Patricia Gherovici
Merleau-Ponty For Clinicians: Restorying/Restoring The 淏ody� And Incarnation Of Narratives
M. Mookie C. Manalili
Dostoevsky for Clinicians: Murder, Madness, and the Conflicted Human Heart
Matthew Clemente
Existential Ethics: Recovering from Narcissism
Robin R. Chalfin, Robert Fox
And We Shall Be Changed: Radical Ethics for the Humanistic Disciplines
Donna Orange
Unjustifying Pain: Levinas Philosophy of Useless Suffering
Eric Severson
International Academic Collaboration at a Time of Geopolitical Strife
Dr. Hans de Wit
Social Psychoanalysis: Theory and Practice
Dr. Lynne Layton
Forgiveness, Gratitude and Hope: A Positive Psychological, Philosophical and Theological Examination
Dr. Liz Gulliford
Anger Gaslighting and Affective Injustice
Dr. Shiloh Whitney
Guilt and Shame in the City: On the Necessities of Moral Legislation
William J. Hendel, J.D.
Unruly Therapeutic: Black Feminist Space-making and Living the Change We Want to Be
Foluke Taylor
Ars Vitae: A Dialogue On Psychological Humanities
Dr. Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn
Camus For Clinicians: Morality, Meaning, And Justice In Confrontation With The Absurd
Matthew Clemente
Biopolitics: Foucault And Beyond
Ann Pellegrini
Theory As A Stone: The Decolonial Now
Dr. Stephen Sheehi
Liberal Political Theory and Radical Ethics: Revisiting Rawls and His Critics
Donna Orange
Climate Emergency and Radical Ethics: Colonialism, Racial Injustice, and Climate Justice
Donna Orange
Responsibility and Burnout: Toward a Sabbatical Philosophy of Time
Eric Severson & Rosemary Mulvihill Hybrid Lecture
Only Connect: Friendship, Suffering, and Character
L. Gregory Jones
Workshop 4: Deepening Life Meaning and Purpose
Erika Prijatelj and Tone Stevelj
Workshop 3: Moving from Loneliness to Connection
Erika Prijatelj and Tone Stevelj
Workshop 2: Cultivating Positive Self-Talk
Erika Prijatelj and Tone Stevelj
Workshop 1: Overcoming Distractibility
Erika Prijatelj and Tone Stevelj
Burnout And Rejuvenation: Inner Balance For Mental Health Clinicians
Erika Prijatelj and Tone Stevelj
Bilingual Literacy and Literature
Patrick Proctor, Silvia Fomin, and Jasmine Alvarado
Sustaining Lives of Meaning and Purpose in the Healthcare Industry
David Goodman, Erik Owens, Kerry Cronin, Kate Jackson-Meyer, Andrea Vicini, Colleen Simonelli, and Katherine E. Gregory
Nietzsche for Clinicians: Learning to Live Between Trauma and Tragedy
Matthew Clemente
#racialtraumaisreal: Assessment and Treatment of the Psychological Consequences of Racism
Dr. Maryam Jernigan-Noesi
Division 24 of the APA Spring Meeting 2023
Boston College was honored to host the annual Spring Meeting of the Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology (STPP � APA Division 24) in 2023. This gathering brought together scholars, practitioners, and students to build community and exchange ideas around the theory, practice, and reimagining of psychology as both a discipline and a force for social change. 婽he conference's presidential theme was 淐onstructing the Psychological Humanities.�
"Trauma and Its Discontents" Public Offerings
The rise of psychological discourse as one of our culture dominant approaches to self-understanding has yielded undeniable benefits. Our increased awareness of psychological suffering has provided us with a fuller, more authentic picture of human life and helped us to respond to the needs of those weighed down by life tragedies. Along with such benefits, however, come losses and distortions that contribute to the loneliness and despair felt throughout contemporary American life. There are few examples of this ambiguity more glaring than the sudden pervasiveness of 渢rauma� and 渢rauma-informed� language systems. The rapid rise of trauma as an interpretive lens through which to understand human behavior has brought with it both advantages and costs. The purpose of this unique gathering is to open the space for interdisciplinary dialogue搃ncluding disciplines from across the humanities such as history, philosophy, theology, psychology, sociology, and literature搕o interrogate and draw out the underlying assumptions of today trauma discourse. With an aim of assisting the field of psychology to take seriously more sophisticated notions of human flourishing, this critical engagement will offer both insights and critiques of one of contemporary society most ubiquitous concepts.
Justice Related Events
"Hosting Earth" Initiative
The "Hosting Earth" initiative brings together a group of psychologically sophisticated thinkers to speak on the topic of the psyche relation to the earth and how we both consciously and unconsciously play guest and host to the world in which we live. From Marjolein Oele reflections on the dirt at our feet to Sean McGrath speculations on the future of our species, from James Morely humanistic ecology to Donna Orange unearthing of our most inhuman practices, from Ed Casey artistic hospitality to Matthew Clemente's aesthetical musings, these dialogues are rife with insight, openness, imagination, and hope.
2024 Annual Meeting for Society for Qualitative Inquiry in Psychology
The Society for Qualitative Inquiry in Psychology (SQIP) was thrilled to host their annual meeting in 2024 at Boston College. The society invited scholars, practitioners, and students to contribute to a vibrant discussion that challenges the status quo and reimagines psychological knowledge. The field of psychology stands at a critical juncture, where the imperative to reflect on and address its historical underpinnings in racism and colonialism is undeniable. The conference encouraged submissions that engage critically with psychology's racist and colonial past, offer reflexive qualitative research, and propose paradigms or methods that foreground knowledge from historically underrepresented or marginalized communities.
Toward the Psychological Humanities International Conference
In June 2026, scholars, artists, colleagues, and friends gathered in Paris to celebrate the life and work of Mark Freeman and to explore the possibilities of the psychological humanities.
Toward the Psychological Humanities brought together an international community of scholars to honor Mark Freeman remarkable career and his contributions to psychology and the human sciences. Across nearly four decades as Professor of Psychology at the College of the Holy Cross, Freeman work has explored narrative, memory, identity, ethics, aesthetics, and the relationship between psychology and the humanities. The conference took his work as both an occasion for celebration and a point of departure for thinking about the future of psychological inquiry.
Inspired especially by Freeman Toward the Psychological Humanities: A Modest Manifesto on the Future of Psychology (2023), participants considered what becomes possible when psychology enters more sustained conversation with literature, philosophy, art, ethics, and other humanistic traditions.
"Hosting Art" Video Series
"Hosting Art" with Diana Boros is an original online video series created and hosted by Diana Boros, which is supported by a joint venture of the Guestbook Project and the Center for Psychological Humanities & Ethics at Boston College. Hosting Art employs the medium of dialogue to bring together the greatest minds making, promoting, theorizing about, and educating about, public and social practice art today.
Specifically, the series focuses on discussions about the transformative capacities of art-the ability of art to encourage critique and introspection-and accordingly, the value of art in society and democracy. It explores how artistic communication and collaboration can create and deepen ties between people and within communities, and how socially engaged, or social practice, projects can serve as vehicles for 渉osting� interactions, dialogues, and relationships. This project aims to become a resource for all those interested in these ideas by creating a collection of conversations that each tackle different dimensions of the complex relationship between art and political life.
