Courses

2019 Fall Courses

BTI 502 Reading Practices: Engaging the Biblical Text

2 credits
This course is an introduction to practices of theological interpretation. Different critical approaches and their historical development, contributions and limitations are discussed. Students gain experience using the biblical story as a norm to reflect on culture and life. The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) is studied.

BTI 570 Integrative Project: Exploring the Future

2 or 3 credits
Prerequisite: Taken in last year of MDIV or MATC degree program
An individualized learning experience that creates space for students to draw from their entire Seattle School experience as they look to their post-graduation ministry and their unique embodiment of text, soul and culture. Blending research methodology with the personal supervision of their advisor (at The Seattle School), students complete the writing of their final integrative project for the MDIV & MATC during their final year. This course is taught consecutively over two trimesters, with one credit earned in each of those terms. M. Div students also add another credit in Spring term.

CSL 502 History and Therapeutic Perspectives: Contextualizing the Interpersonal

3 credits
This course is designed to give students a historical and theoretical grounding in the major counseling theories and theorists. Current interpersonal theory is placed both historically and theoretically. The student will explore relational dynamic theory from both a psychological and theological vantage point.

CSL 510 Human Growth:The Interpersonal & Narrative Journey

2 credits
The course covers human development from a biopsychosocial perspective, which includes neurological, psychological, and interpersonal perspectives from conception to death. Particular emphasis will be placed upon the integrative functions of the mind as a key to meaningful growth across the human life-span.

CSL 513 Sexual Disorders

2 credits
Prerequisite: CSL 517, CSL 527, CSL 551, CSL 552
This class addresses the physical, relational, ethical and theological issues most often encountered in out-patient private practice and the local church that relate to clients struggling with their sexuality and addictive issues in general. The focus will be on understanding the symptoms in light of gender theory, addiction, and idolatry. The student will be better equipped to understand and treat a number of paraphilias, gender identity disorders, and normal sexual dysfunctions.
*This class will meet 3 Mondays in September and also 1 intensive weekend November 7 & 8 from 9:00-6:00 each day.

CSL 514 Issues of Abuse: Sexual Harm and Its Consequences

2 credits
Prerequisites: CSL 513, CSL 544
This course provides a dynamic and interpersonal overview of the consequences of sexual abuse as well as instruction in working therapeutically with an abuse victim. The course will aid the student in recognition and assessment of various abuse contexts, reporting procedures, and prevention programs. CONFIRMED DATES November 21-23.

CSL 530 Internship I

2 credits
Prerequisites: CSL 502, CSL 503, CSL 528, CSL 551, CSL 552, CSL 553, CSL 542, CSL 544, CSL 545, concurrent with CSL 543 (Recommended: CSL 510, CSL 524)
The purpose of the Counseling Internship is to provide a clinical setting for the intern to gather clinical experience and to receive clinical supervision. During the gatherin of clinical experience, the intern has the opportunity to learn and to grow their "clinical mind." The clinical setting will provide the intern with supervised experiences in preparation for professional practice as a counselor. Supervision will include but not limited to administrative skills (fees, billing, etc.), case management skills (evaluation of lethality, level of care, etc.) and clinical skills (frame/perimeter, setting, transference, countertransference, documentation, assessment, case formulation, etc.). The Intern will have an opportunity to develop and practice these skills in a variety of clinical settings under the guidance of an on-site supervisor. In addition, the student will participate in a supervised Case Conference seminar at The Seattle School.
Please also see the Internship Handbook on the website.

CSL 543 Therapy II: Psychotherapy in Clinical Practice

2 credits
Prerequisites: CSL 542, CSL 544, CSL 551, CSL 552, and CSL 553; concurrent with CSL 530
This advanced course follows Therapy I and continues to explore the use of the self in the interpersonal aspect of therapeutic work. Focus is given to the clinical process by learning to develop treatment strategies and interventions.
ATTENDANCE at the Relational Perspectives Series conference September 20 7pm-9pm and September 21 9am-3:30pm at The Seattle School is required. The class will also meet 2:00pm-8:00pm on Thursdays Sept. 12, Oct. 3 & Oct. 10.

CSL 544 Psychopathology I

3 credits
Prerequisites: CSL 527, CSL 528, and CSL 551
This course provides a theoretical foundation in understanding clinical psychopathology. The class addresses developmental and biological categories of mental disorders as well as theological underpinnings of development. The student will explore theoretical material regarding clinical disorders and disorders of the self. The class addresses diagnostic categories of psychopathology, assessment, treatment, understanding, and the use of current Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-V.

CSL 551 Listening Lab: Part I

2 credits over 2 terms
This introductory practicum provides the foundation for counseling training by means of group interaction with a faculty supervisor. The practicum provides training in listening and feedback skills. It also presents the opportunity for each student to consider personal matters that may impede or enhance their work as a counselor, pastor or ministry leader.

CSL 553 Second Year Practicum

2 credits
Prerequisites: CSL 551 & 552
Concurrently taken with: CSL 542 and CSL 544
This course provides advanced counseling training and builds upon the training experiences of First Year Practicum. It provides a supervised training experience with a practicum supervisor as well as peer feedback. Practicum II emphasizes therapeutic conversations, supervised practice counseling with fellow students, and personal exploration as it related to the practice of counseling.
Students should register for this course in the fall if they intend to take it in either Fall or Winter term of this Academic Year. Registered students must fill out the Practicum Preference Form to indicate term & times.

CSL 575A Special Topics

1 credit
The topic of this course is The Mourning Position: Grieving, Mourning, and Shame. Every day holds many losses. This course will focus on the developmental trajectory of the “Mourning Position” (O.Day, 2018), grieving, and the relationship with shame. Differential diagnostic categories will be of clinical focus as well as differences between grief and mourning.

FI Frameworks and Intersections

IDS 501 Intersections: Interdisciplinary Inquiry & Psychological Frameworks

This course will explore interdisciplinary perspectives on complex problems that affect and reveal the human condition, as well as contexts that impact learning, including epistemological frameworks, personal worldviews and hermeneutics, and one’s internal world and development of the mind. Issues pertaining to diversities of one’s locatedness, experience, oppressive systems and institutionalized marginalization, and social fragmentation will all be engaged from an interdisciplinary framework of theology, psychology, and biblical studies.

IDS 504 Critical Reading Lab

Critical Reading Lab is a companion class to the first term Common Curriculum classes. In this course, students explore what it means to know and to learn within the graduate curriculum, particularly as it relates to interdisciplinary and integrative work. Students will explore various ways of knowing as part of a journey of discovery in a smaller group format with other students.

IDS 510 Constructive Critique for Change: Interdisciplinary Methods

Note: This course is cross-listed with TCE 501: Critical Social Theory & is an Interdisciplinary MATC requirement. This course is NOT the same as IDS 501: Intersections: Interdisciplinary Inquiry & Psychological Frameworks

Interdisciplinary studies involves integration of insights and theories in order to answer questions or solve problems in a comprehensive way. But what does that mean exactly and how does one do it well? In this course students will explore critical social theories and interdisciplinary approaches to examine theological and socio-cultural issues. Together we will engage said theories and methods, grounding these practices in concrete, contemporary explorations. The course features guest speakers, a service learning component, and active learning strategies that will culminate in a final paper that is developed throughout the duration of the course. Through this work students will discover how issues of gender, class, and race can be addressed through interdisciplinary studies and critical social theory in the service of our post-modern context.

RLM 503 Life Together I: Ancient-Future Focus for Church and Worship

2 credits
Prerequisites: Concurrent with RLM 530
This course considers missional leadership for church and worship by surveying the Church's past and continuing story through lenses of both struggle and strength. The interanimation of text, church, and culture in the ongoing process of God's people incarnating Christ is highlighted. Praxis-focused field experience (i.e. preaching, pastoral care, worship, chaplaincy, etc.), and classroom instruction are integrated with an intentional community setting. Students
will develop a practical ecclesiology.

RLM 530 MDiv Practicum II: Embodying Christ

1 credit
Prerequisites: CSL 551, CSL 552, concurrent with RLM 503
This course provides advanced ministry practice building upon the experiences of Counseling Practicum I with a focus on vocational Christian ministry. MDiv Practicum II explores the incarnational and relational ministry affording students the opportunity to further discern their unique calls to ministry.

SFD 501 Prayer I

To provide a solid foundation for spiritual enrichment, this course examines the theological and practical dynamics of prayer.
This 1 credit SFD course will be taught as an intensive Oct 3 2-9pm & Oct 4 9a-5p.

SFD 513B Care of the Soul and Call to Sacred Activism

The question in this course is how the Christ call of self-denial does not become a self-deprecating denial of self. Care of the soul has to do with continually cultivating a richly expressive, imaginative and meaningful life that concerns itself with attending to God's presence in the world. This course invites the student to organize and shape one's soul and life in a way that is inseparable from the world's soul; calling us to work for change in God's world in a manner that allows for sustainability, to "burn and not be consumed (Exodus 3.2)."

SFD 526 Celtic Spirituality

This is an introduction to a period of history in which Christianity developed somewhat differently in the British Isles and somewhat independently from the Church on the Continent. The "Golden Age of Saints and Scholars" which characterized the 5th-8th centuries in Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Brittany, Cornwall and Isle of Man continues to have impact on the Church today. We will examine the ethos, worldview, and values of the Christian culture of that era, and how it speaks across the centuries to the Christian communities today.
This 1 credit SFD course will be offered in an intensive format on October 19th & November 9th, from 9-5 both days.

TCE 501 Critical Social Theory: Bridging Church & Community

Interdisciplinary studies involves integration of insights and theories in order to answer questions or solve problems in a comprehensive way. But what does that mean exactly and how does one do it well? In this course students will explore critical social theories and interdisciplinary approaches to examine theological and socio-cultural issues. Together we will engage said theories and methods, grounding these practices in concrete, contemporary explorations. The course features guest speakers, a service learning component, and active learning strategies that will culminate in a final paper that is developed throughout the duration of the course. Through this work students will discover how issues of gender, class, and race can be addressed through interdisciplinary studies and critical social theory in the service of our post-modern context.

TCE 506 Church History I: From Jesus to the Reinassance

This course examines the unfolding narrative of Christianity from its beginnings through the Renaissance, along with the history of Christian mission and the part Christians and Christianity played in the larger social history of each era. It seeks to integrate doctrinal, intellectual, liturgical, and ecclesiastic history with an understanding of how Christians lived their daily lives.

TCE 513A Advanced Seminar

An individualized learning experience, which creates spaces for students to draw from their entire Seattle School experience as they look to their post-graduation ministry and their unique embodiment of text, soul, and culture. Blending research methodology with the personal supervision of a Seattle School advisor, students complete the writing of their final integrative project for their MDiv & MATC during their final year. MDiv & MATC students must complete an Integrative Project in order to graduate.

Through active participation in this guided self-study, students are expected to synthesize their cumulative Seattle School coursework, readings, and research as they missionally articulate their understanding and integration of text, soul, and culture as relating to their future ministries. Each student will produce either a major paper or report of a major project as the articulation of his or her synthesis.

TCE 513B Advanced Seminar

This Advanced Seminar builds upon the introductory contextual theology work of courses such as TCE 543 God, Gender & Sexuality, TCE 544 Triune God & Creation, TCE 501 Critical Social Theory and BTI 522 Feminist/Womanist Hermeneutics in order to more deeply engage the methodologies, findings, and contextual starting points of Queer Theology as a discipline within Christian Theology. In the fifty-plus years since theologians began to directly address the questions and concerns of Christian Theology in light of queer identities and experiences, and vice versa, the theological discourses of this discipline have expanded and diversified in compelling and complex ways. This seminar is an opportunity for students already familiar with some of the frameworks of queer theology to identify a particular theological topic, cultural issue or queer theologian to explore in-depth. Students will work in self-directed study plans and share their findings with the seminar as a whole, creating a small laboratory of theological curiosity and collaboration, with the ultimate aim of becoming better equipped to interrogate and attend to the questions and responses most intimately related to our embodied identities and lived faith.

TCE 540 God & Persons

This course explores the theological concept of persons, both divine and human. The goal of this class is to survey, compare and contrast, and evaluate various perspectives on personhood from the depth and breadth of the Christian tradition. This class will start with the doctrine of God, engage with the doctrine of creation (and eco theology), and end with theological anthropology (including the imago Dei and the imago Christi). This is a more doctrinally oriented class, but with an eye to the reality that all theology is contextual.

WW Writing Workshop

Note: This is the pre-term Workshop. The Writing Workshop provides a foundational understanding of the writing process and of The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology’s academic writing standards. This seminar-style class is an opportunity to become familiar with different types of writing required at The Seattle School, learn the appropriate use of academic sources, and receive feedback about your writing. In addition, you’ll review the basics of thesis statements, evidence, paper organization, revision, library research, citation style, and sentence style and grammar. Peer review and small- and large-group discussion will be used extensively in this workshop; thus, the Writing Workshop is appropriate both for the novice academic writer as well as the experienced one.

2020 Winter Courses

2020 Spring Courses