Research Teams

The Spirituality and Positive Psychology Research Team is an interest group of doctoral students and faculty who are interested in spirituality as an aspect of human flourishing.  People have always used spirituality as a coping resource for handling the stress, pain, and tragedy of life and psychology has traditionally emphasized this aspect of religion and spirituality. Recently, however, there is a new emphasis in the field that sees spirituality as a path for human flourishing and growth.  While not neglecting the painful parts of human experience, positive psychology tries to understand what builds character strength for the ordinary virtues that are essential to personal and communal well-being.  More and more spirituality is seen as playing a vital role in developing human character and virtue.  The team is engaged in an ongoing project of collecting data on topics such as resilience, empathy, altruism, spiritual intimacy with others, self-regulation, optimism, hope, and gratitude and their relationship to happiness and spiritual growth. Several students have published studies based on their doctoral research and numerous student presentations at professional conferences have emerged from this project. For more information, please send an email to Joseph Ciarrocchi at jciarrocchi@loyola.edu

Quantum Science and Spiritual Implications for Counseling: Students who were interested in pursuing the understanding of how the Spirit makes itself known in our world and how we can use this information to better ourselves, our clients, and our world.For more information, send an e-mail to Sharon Cheston, Ed.D. at scheston@loyola.edu.