$4.3M grant will establish hub for the psychological humanities
A three-year, $4.3 million grant from the Kern Family Foundation will establish a major hub for the psychological humanities at Boston College, further solidifying the University's position as the thought leader and principal mover in this space.
Specifically, the grant will support a multi-tiered project to help address the current mental health crisis facing the nation. Titled "Awakening Psychology’s Moral Imagination" and housed within BC's Center for the Psychological Humanities and Ethics (CPHE), the project seeks to bring psychology back into robust conversation with the humanities, and, by doing so, increase the discipline’s capacity to examine the deeper questions and ethical dilemmas at the heart of human existence.
In the last century, the empirical and naturalistic side of psychology has risen in prominence and has yielded major advances, project administrators say. However, this rapid growth has at times been accompanied by a diminished appreciation of the more humanistic and ethical dimensions of human experience, an unintended result of psychology’s separation from philosophy, theology, and other branches of the humanities.
This initiative, they say, is a response to the current moment of cultural crisis when demand for mental health treatment is at an all-time high and troubling mental health trends persist, leaving hospitals overwhelmed, non-clinicians and AI tools thrust into counseling roles, and reports of despair and isolation climbing.
"At a time characterized by profound anxiety and despair, it is imperative for the field of psychology, designed to care for sufferers and advance their well-being, to take up the moral, existential, and perennial questions at the core of life in a serious and meaningful way. We need psychology to be the very best version of itself—a version attentive to the whole person, including the spiritual and ethical dimensions of our lives," said CPHE Executive Director David Goodman, dean of BC's Woods College of Advancing Studies and a licensed psychologist.
L-R: Matthew Clemente, director of research and curriculum at the Center for the Psychological Humanties, with CPHE Executive Director David Goodman, dean of the Woods College of Advancing Studies. (Matthew Healey)
The project will directly address this aim by advocating for a morally rich, humanistic discipline that embeds character, virtue, and wonder into psychological training and practice, and by providing related programming and resources for current mental health professionals as well as the training of future practitioners.
Boston College is well positioned to lead this shift, Goodman said, with its Jesuit educational mission rooted in the Ignatian principles of cura personalis—care for the whole person—and discernment, the act of determining the best course toward leading a life of meaning and purpose.
In addition, the CPHE—a collaboration among the Woods College, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences, Clough School of Theology and Ministry, and Lynch School of Education and Human Development—currently provides humanities-rich continuing education to an average of 3,000 clinicians per year while overseeing two book series, its annual international Psychology and the Other Conference, and regular contributions to popular media outlets like Psychology Today.
The University also is home to the nation's first undergraduate minor in the psychological humanities; a master's-level program in Writing and the Human Condition began this fall, and BC will soon launch its first doctoral program in clinical psychology (Psy.D.), grounded in psychological humanities principles.
"We are grateful and excited to have this opportunity to expand the work we have been doing in the psychological humanities," said Matthew Clemente, director of research and curriculum at the CPHE and an assistant professor of practice in the Department of Formative Education at Boston College. “Because of the stature the field of psychology has attained in contemporary culture, we aspire to impact not only the discipline but broader understandings of personhood and how we relate to one another.”
“The Kern Family Foundation team observed as Drs. Goodman and Clemente launched the CPHE with a seed investment from the John T. Templeton Foundation,” noted James C. Rahn, Foundation president. “We are proud to build on the Templeton investment and believe the CPHE and related endeavors can significantly reshape the training, continuing education, and practice of clinical psychologists across America.”
“ There is a growing movement within psychology wherein students and clinicians alike are seeking deeper roots beneath our formulations...This project seeks to fortify and advance this movement and put Boston College at the center of such work. ”
The cornerstone of the new project is Flourish, a multimedia platform that will serve as a central training hub and resource network for clinicians, educators, and related audiences such as clergy and academic faculty. Flourish will offer videos, podcasts, courses, discussion forums, a teaching commons, and professional certificate programs. It will also host a dedicated space for educators seeking course materials that draw from the deeply interdisciplinary and ethically rich work characteristic of the psychological humanities movement.
Content for Flourish and outreach to its audiences will be driven by two fellowship programs: Psychological Humanities Fellows, composed of field leaders and scholars who design curricula and serve as movement ambassadors, and Cultural Imagination Fellows, who will create public-facing content focused on civic imagination—the collective ability to pursue a common good.
The project will advance its message beyond the Flourish platform through high-profile media partnerships with Harper’s and America magazines, Psychology Today, and Windrider Studios, as well as annual gatherings both in the United States and abroad. Building on an inaugural "Attention and Flourishing Conference" on art and character held in Spain earlier this summer, a follow-up event is already scheduled for Madrid in 2027. Gatherings planned for New York City will offer clinicians continuing education units centered on ethically engaged psychological discourse, while a Civic Imagination Forum will bring together senior leaders across business, education, philanthropy, government, and religious institutions to tackle societal issues such as addiction, polarization, and civic disengagement.
Finally, the project will focus on enhancing clinical training and the cultivation of future leaders through the expansion of the CPHE’s continuing education offerings, and the creation of a Kern Fellows program, in which doctoral students in clinical psychology at Boston College will serve as student ambassadors and advance research at the intersection of the humanities and the field.
"There is a growing movement within psychology wherein students and clinicians alike are seeking deeper roots beneath our formulations. We frequently hear from practitioners and aspiring psychologists a hunger for more dignifying and ethically rich approaches to understanding human suffering, identity, and potential," Goodman said. "This project seeks to fortify and advance this movement and put Boston College at the center of such work."