Guest editor page: teaching integration.(Report)

Over the last 40 years, numerous models describing the relationship between psychology and theology have arisen, from those espousing little or no interaction between the two fields (e.g., Adams, 1970) to those espousing a mutually informative integration between the two fields (e.g., Carter & Narramore, 1979). The level of sophistication characterizing the integration paradigm continues to grow (e.g., Hall & Porter, 2004; McMinn, & Cambell, 2007), yet one wonders whether the knowledge of how graduate students actually learn integration and the pedagogical strategies to teach integration have likewise risen in quality. This special edition of the Journal of Psychology and Theology on teaching integration attempts to address these two questions.

How Students Learn Integration

Compared to other areas, little research on how graduate psychology and counseling students learn integration has been done over the last 40 years. Randall Sorenson's studies with clinical psychology doctoral students (Sorenson, 1994, 1997; Sorenson, Derflinger, Bufford, McMinn, 2004; Staton, Sorenson, & Vande Kemp, 1998) represent the lone theory-driven, systematic, empirically-based research program found in the literature. His findings demonstrated the importance of relational attachment processes in how students learn integration. Unfortunately, his untimely death in 2005 left open the question of whether other researchers would attempt to build on his work.

This special edition's first three articles confirm that investigations of how students learn integration will continue and meaningfully add to Sorenson's theory. In the first article, Ripley and colleagues from 4 universities performed a survey to investigate whether Sorenson's emphasis on the importance of relational attachment in learning integration held true for graduate students not only in clinical psychology but also in other academic disciplines. Further, their analysis explored the role of environmental factors and whether gender and ethnic differences emerged in what students found as important to integration. The second article focused on Hall and colleagues' utilization of grounded theory techniques to perform a content analysis of qualitative data gathered in Ripley's survey. Their findings expand on Sorenson's ideas in regards to how students conceptualize integration and include pedagogical implications. Finally, Sites and colleagues explored the following question. If students were to nominate specific professors as most helpful in learning integration, what would these professors have in common? Her phenomenological inquiry on 8 professors from a variety of academic disciplines increase our understanding of the integrative process for these faculty members, in addition to finding support for characteristics that Sorenson identified as helpful.

Pedagogical Strategies to Teach Integration

In 1995, the Journal of Psychology and Theology published a special edition on teaching integration in psychology courses at the undergraduate level (volume 23, issue 4). This important work highlighted some of the key integration issues in various psychology subjects, along with research on what undergraduate professors were doing in teaching integration. It is fitting that a little over 10 years later, another special edition has emerged, this time with a focus on graduate counseling and clinical psychology student needs.

The remaining four articles address applied aspects of teaching integration with these students, each focusing on a unique venue for such integration to occur. Across programs, all ...