Intersections at The Seattle School
Intersections features essays, dialogues, critical engagement, and art from faculty, staff, alumni, students, and other thought leaders. Grounded in the hope of fostering faithful dialogue, we are guided by a commitment to understanding narrative, wrestling with intersections, resisting reactivity, and fostering radical hospitality. With that in mind, we seek to feature work from a wide range of backgrounds and perspectives. Therefore the opinions expressed on the Intersections blog are those of the authors and do not purport to reflect an official statement regarding the views or opinions of The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology. If you would like to offer feedback, respond to a piece published here, or offer your own submission, you can email us at submissions@theseattleschool.edu.
An Interview with Psychotherapist Matt Inman on Relationally Focused Psychodynamic Therapy
Relationally Focused Psychodynamic Therapy (RFPT) is a post-graduate certificate program developed by Dr. Roy Barsness, Professor of Counseling Psychology, that “deepens a psychotherapist’s capacity to work directly within the therapeutic [relationship] as the primary instrument towards change.” Matt Inman is a psychotherapist in private practice and a second-year student of the RFPT program. In an […]
Read, Watch, Listen: 8 Theology & Technology Resources
Technology has advanced rapidly in the last few years, and now in a pandemic, we are more reliant on technology to study, work, communicate, and form relationships than ever before. Though the purpose of technology is to make things simpler and more convenient, it also opens the door to questions around ethics, morality, mental health, […]
Update on Learning at The Seattle School Post-Pandemic
In the wake of the pandemic and the growing concern for the health and safety of our learning community, The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology made announcements in April 2020 and June 2020 regarding Spring and Fall term online coursework for our graduate programs, including a decision to offer online coursework for the entire […]
What Is a Group Interview for Graduate School?
In this video, Ben Oldham, Director of Enrollment, walks prospective students through the reasons we ask our applicants to participate in a group interview and how our group interviews offer an authentic experience of what it’s like to be a student at The Seattle School. Watch the video above or keep reading below to find […]
What is Relationally Focused Psychodynamic Therapy?
Dr. Roy Barsness is the founder of the Relationally Focused Psychodynamic Therapy, an evidence-based treatment approach with strong roots in depth psychology, embodied theology, dialogical philosophy, and neuroscience. He has also developed a Post-Graduate Certificate through The Seattle School where clinicians are able to deepen their understanding and application of relational psychotherapy over a two-year […]
11 Black Educators We’re Learning From
Black History Month invites us into a posture of remembering the people and events that impacted our history not only in the past, but also as history is unfolding in the present. Here you will find a list of eleven Black educators and writers from a wide range of disciplines who are making history today. […]
Refreshing Your Way of Life
“A Rule of Life is descriptive in that it articulates our intentions and defines the ways in which we want to live. When we fall short of these intentions, the Rule of Life becomes prescriptive, showing us how we can return to the path that we have set for ourselves and recapture our original vision.” […]
Dear Clergy, Take Care Of Yourselves
We are early in the new year, both in the calendar and liturgically. With Epiphany, we conclude the Christmas season in which we celebrated the birth of Jesus, the arrival of Emmanuel, the Incarnation of God. The divine force that creates, includes, and transcends all of creation, all of the universe, became human, with all […]
What is the Difference Between Empathy and Compassion?
Desire. This may seem like a strange place to start a blog post designed to address the categories of compassion and empathy, but in order to join this conversation in a meaningful way, I believe desire is where the conversation must begin and end. In my recent post on self-care, I referenced the purpose of […]
Always Winter, Never Christmas: An Advent Reflection
Brody Hed is a first-year MACP student from Minnesota whose passion for literature and story evolved into a love of helping others see the beauty of their own journey. This passion led him to pursue camp ministry, writing, student development, to now studying counseling psychology at The Seattle School. Advent. A season of looking forward […]
The Betwixt and Between: Finding Resilience in Liminality
My all-time favorite movie line comes from the Western Five Card Stud. Dean Martin is out demonstrating his six-gun prowess to Inga Stevens, shooting bottles off the corral rails, when up rides Bob Mitchum as “The Preacher.” Mitchum asks to give it a try, so Dean hands him the pistol and Big Bob proceeds to […]
Commencement Keynote Address 2020: Howard Stevenson, PhD
On September 27, 2020, we gathered online to celebrate The Seattle School’s 22nd commencement ceremony. Though later than anticipated due to the global pandemic and unlike any ceremony we’ve hosted in previous years, it was nonetheless a joy-filled occasion as we commemorated the graduating students in our Master of Divinity, MA in Theology & Culture, […]