Life University (LIFE) believes that in order to educate people, you have to do more than just feed their intellect or teach them critical thinking skills. Additionally, they believe that you have to teach them how to be better human beings by cultivating skills such as emotion regulation, emotional awareness, empathy and compassion.

One such program on the LIFE campus that is revolutionizing the way that psychology is being taught in higher education is the Secular Ethics and Contemplative Science track within the Master of Science degree in Positive Psychology (MSPP). LIFE’s MSPP – Secular Ethics and Contemplative Science track is a six-quarter program that involves the studies and practice of contemplative and meditative practices, such as mindfulness meditation and Cognitively-Based Compassion Training (CBCT) in courses that involve a “meditation lab” component.

“A lot of times when studying psychology at universities, you learn and discuss, but you don’t actually practice the things you talk about,” says Dr. Michael Karlin, assistant professor of Psychology at LIFE. “At Life University and in our department, every course has requirements for practice labs. We can teach you about what compassion is and read all the research about it, but if you don’t actually sit in a lab and do the practices that cultivate compassion, it won’t be sustained.”

Students in this program will develop familiarity with the emerging research on contemplative practices and their effects, particularly in the fields of psychology, neuroscience and the health sciences. Students will learn how to develop secular interventions based on contemplative practices and traditions. They will also learn how to design research studies that evaluate such interventions in diverse settings, including educational and clinical settings. LIFE’s Master’s of Positive Psychology is one of just three in the United States and the only such program in the Southeast.

For more information, visit LIFE.edu/academic-pages/graduate/ positive-psychology. To apply to Life University, visit Apply.LIFE.edu.