Christian Integration

The Wheaton College Department of Psychology, through its Doctor of Psychology program, strives to

• educate its students in a manner grounded in, informed by, and shaped by the beliefs and practices of the Christian faith;
  
  
• produce highly competent clinical psychologists who will be practitioner-scholars, capable of benefiting from and contributing to both the theoretical and applied empirical scholarly literature of the clinical psychology field, adept at advancing our understanding of the interface of psychological and spiritual understandings of the person, and competent to intervene to enhance human welfare;
  
  
• emphasize and model a commitment to professional practice as service, especially to the Body of Christ, the Church, and also to those persons who have been marginalized and wounded by our society on the basis of racial or ethnic identification, age, socioeconomic status, or gender; and
  
  
• conduct training in the context of an intentional community of faith which will emphasize a balanced approach to spiritual, personal, professional, and interpersonal growth and development.

We live in a time in which it is increasingly intellectually credible to work at interrelating religious belief with a scholarly and applied discipline such as psychology. The Enlightenment rationalism and dogmatic empiricism that were in vogue several decades ago could hardly allow for such interchange. But today's intellectual climate includes the broad phenomenon of postmodernism, the rise of instrumentalist and critical realist approaches to the philosophy of science, and even specific empirical findings on the positive relationships between religious practice and mental health and between values and psychotherapeutic outcomes. These developments leave plenty of room for interaction between Christian faith and practice on the one hand and the discipline of psychology on the other.

Our commitment to Christian distinctiveness is more than just a reaction to contemporary trends in scholarship, however. It is a reflection of the historic commitment of the entire institution, a commitment that has endured when the intellectual trends have not been so comforting. "Wheaton College [as a whole] exists to help build the church and improve society worldwide by promoting the development of whole and effective Christians through excellence in programs of Christian higher education . . . Wheaton College seeks to relate Christian liberal arts education to the needs of contemporary society. The curricular approach is designed to combine faith and learning in order to produce a biblical perspective needed to relate Christian experience to the demands of those needs" (Catalog of Wheaton College).

The Graduate School specifically exists to "relate Christian education to the needs of contemporary society." Further, its mission is to "enable the committed Christian student to formulate and articulate a biblical and global understanding of life and ministry and to apply it to service for Christ and His kingdom. The emphasis of the graduate program throughout its history has been on practical scholarship -- scholarship totally rooted in the final authority of the Scriptures but practical so that educated and trained Christian leaders are equipped to relate to the real needs of people today"( Catalog of Wheaton College).

We seek to train psychologists to understand and value human diversity, to demonstrate a commitment to underserved populations, and to be agents of reconciliation wherever oppression and injustice exist.
In conformity with these broad goals of the whole institution and of the Graduate School in particular, the doctoral program in clinical psychology is founded upon a concern for interrelating Christian belief and practice with the best of contemporary scholarship and professional standards in the discipline of psychology. We are forthrightly concerned with producing graduates who will be distinctive as Christians in their practice of professional psychology, whether that practice be in an overtly religious context or not.

Another feature that distinguishes the Wheaton Psy.D. Program from other programs across the nation is the Chicago Area Christian Training Consortium.

Chicago Area Christian Training Consortium
The Chicago Area Christian Training Consortium is an APA-accredited internship site that also provides practicum-level training opportunities to students in the Wheaton. M.A. and Psy.D. programs.  The Consortium includes the following agencies and institutions:  Outreach Community Ministries (Carol Stream, IL), Lydia Home Association (Chicago, IL), Cornerstone Counseling Center (Chicago, IL), the Center for Rural Psychology (Elburn, IL), Lawndale Christian Health Center (Lawndale, IL), and the Wheaton College Graduate School (Wheaton, IL).

The purpose of the Training Consortium is to strengthen psychological service delivery to underserved persons and their communities by equipping and preparing graduate students to work competently with these groups.  In the context of a multidisciplinary training consortium, a distinct course of study is provided for interns in professional psychology. This training is founded on a commitment to develop the intern's competence as a professional psychologist in service provision to underserved groups from a distinctly Christian perspective.  The Consortium maintains a special relationship with the Wheaton College and encourages applications from Psy.D. students.

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