Chris R. Schlauch

Associate Professor of Pastoral Psychology
and Psychology of Religion

B.A.  Rutgers University
M.Div.  Yale Divinity School
Ph.D.  University of Chicago Divinity School

Dr. Schlauch’s Publications

Professor Chris Schlauch accepted the position of Assistant Director for Professional Services at the Danielsen Institute at Boston University, and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Pastoral Psychology and Psychology of Religion in the School of Theology and in the Graduate School, in 1985. Three years later he became a full-time faculty member. Since 1997, he has served as Chair of Area C—Religion, Culture, and Personality—in the School of Theology, and as Coordinator of two Ph.D. programs in the Division of Religious and Theological Studies in the Graduate School: Counseling Psychology and Religion (formerly, Pastoral Psychology), and Psychology of Religion. Counseling Psychology and Religion (CPAR), a multidisciplinary program committed to training professional psychologists, follows a scholar/practitioner model. Graduates are prepared to serve as professors as well as clinicians, with knowledge of and sensitivity to systems of meaning, value, and belief. Psychology of Religion is an academic, non-clinical post-master’s program designed to address some of the central substantive and methodological research issues and problems in the field.

Professor Schlauch’s primary research interests have to do with methodology: how to coordinate research and scholarship among diverse traditions of inquiry in psychological, religious, and theological studies. He is currently formulating a theory of self (“a religious/theological anthropology”) that extends the legacy of William James, in terms of “the varieties of being religious.” Among the sources for these efforts are various movements in psychoanalytic theory—classical psychoanalysis, ego psychology, object relations, and self psychology—as well as scholarship in theology (systematic, philosophical, practical), comparative religion, philosophy, and sociology of knowledge.

Professor Schlauch maintains a clinical practice of psychotherapy and supervision of psychotherapy at the Danielsen Institute. These practices in the “care of souls” directly inform his research and teaching.

Professor Schlauch served on the Advisory Committee of the Pastoral Counselor Examination Board, a group of faculty gathered with the express purpose of constructing a bibliography and a written examination by which states would assess competence of and license pastoral counselors. He served on the Editorial Committee of the Journal of Pastoral Theology, and continues to serve on the Editorial Committee of The Journal of Pastoral Care. He has served as an external reviewer for The Journal of Religion and on behalf of various presses. Professor Schlauch, a member of the Society for Pastoral Theology since 1986, has for the past three years served on the Steering Committee of The Society. He will chair the Steering Committee in 2004-2005.