Jared C. Parker, Ph.D.
I am a professor of psychology at Hillsdale College working at the intersection of psychology, philosophy, and theology. I am especially interested in psychotherapy as an intellectual tradition: the texts, ideas, and arguments that have shaped how we understand human suffering and change.
Continuing education for counselors Hillsdale faculty page
The approach
Psychotherapy is more than a collection of techniques. It is also an intellectual tradition: a long conversation about suffering, desire, habit, freedom, relationship, interpretation, and change.
These seminars invite professional counselors into that conversation through close reading of major texts, from classical and religious sources to the foundational figures of modern psychotherapy. Courses combine focused instruction with guided seminar discussion and attention to contemporary clinical questions.
Current seminar
Current seminar: live online for professional counselors, Fall 2026
We will read Plato's Alcibiades and ask what its account of self-knowledge and care of the soul can illuminate about psychotherapy. The course explores the Platonic roots of therapeutic practice, Plato's theory of change, and the unavoidable role of ethics and values in clinical work.
About
I am an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Hillsdale College. My work sits at the intersection of psychology, philosophy, and theology, with particular interests in theoretical and philosophical psychology, philosophy of psychotherapy, moral psychology, hermeneutics and phenomenology, and existential psychology.
I am interested in how modern psychology can be taught in a liberal-arts mode: through primary texts, intellectual genealogy, and dialogue rather than only through textbooks and summaries of current findings. That same approach informs my continuing-education seminars for clinicians.
Psychotherapy, as I understand it, is not only a set of evidence-based practices. It is also an intellectual tradition. Its questions about suffering, desire, responsibility, relationship, freedom, habit, and change belong to a much older conversation. I want clinicians to know their way around that tradition, and to encounter its major voices directly.
Continuing education
Discussion-based continuing education in the intellectual traditions of psychotherapy.
Most continuing education is organized around techniques, protocols, and condensed presentations of current research. These courses take a different approach: we read important texts directly, work through difficult ideas together, and ask what they mean for contemporary clinical practice.
Each seminar combines brief contextual instruction with sustained, facilitated discussion of a primary text. Courses are organized around clear professional learning objectives while preserving the open inquiry and serious conversation of a liberal-arts seminar.
A live seminar on Alcibiades, self-knowledge, care of the soul, moral change, and the place of values in therapy.
Modern psychotherapy often presents itself as a technical and scientific enterprise. But many of its deepest questions are much older: What does it mean to know oneself? Why do people fail to become the people they want to be? What is the relationship between self-knowledge and change? Can psychotherapy ever be neutral about the good life?
In this seminar, participants will read Plato's Alcibiades and explore its account of self-knowledge, care of the soul, moral formation, and human change. We will consider the Platonic roots of therapeutic practice and ask how Plato's understanding of the person illuminates contemporary debates about values, ethics, and the goals of psychotherapy.
Designed for professional counselors. Psychologists, social workers, and other licensed mental health professionals are welcome to attend.
Date, registration, price, and continuing-education credit (stated in clock hours) forthcoming. Approval information will be posted here once granted. Please review the policies below before registering.
These policies apply to all continuing-education programs offered by Jared C. Parker. Questions about any of them can be sent to jared@jaredcparker.com.
Programs are offered in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Participants who need an accommodation, such as live captioning or accessible versions of readings, should request it by email at least 10 days before the program. Requests received later will be honored whenever possible.
The fee for each program is listed on its course description. Participants who cancel at least 3 days before the program begins receive a full refund. Cancellations made after that point receive a 50% refund. No refunds are given after the program begins.
If a program is canceled or rescheduled by the provider, registered participants will be notified promptly and may choose a full refund or transfer to the new date.
Participants may submit a complaint or grievance about any aspect of a program, including content, presentation, registration, fees, or credit, in writing to jared@jaredcparker.com. Complaints will be acknowledged within 10 business days, and a written response and proposed resolution will be provided within 14 days of that acknowledgment. Records of complaints and their resolution are retained for five years.
Credit is awarded in clock hours based on actual instructional time, where one hour equals sixty minutes. Attendance is verified through Zoom participant reports recording each attendee's join and leave times. Full attendance is required to receive credit; partial credit is not awarded.
Certificates of completion are issued by email within 7 days after the program ends, once attendance has been verified and the program evaluation has been submitted. Certificates are never issued before a program ends. Each certificate lists the provider's name and contact information, the program title and date, the participant's name, the hours awarded, the signature of the provider, and the approval number.
Every participant receives an evaluation form at the end of each program, covering the content, the presenter's knowledge and presentation skills, the online format and accommodations, the quality of materials, and relevance to professional counseling practice. Feedback is reviewed after each program and used to improve future offerings.
Attendance records, evaluations, and program materials are kept securely for five years.
Jared C. Parker
Department of Psychology · Hillsdale College · Hillsdale, Michigan 49242
jared@jaredcparker.com
Theoretical and philosophical psychology · Philosophy of psychotherapy · Moral psychology · Hermeneutics and phenomenology · Existential psychology
Ph.D., Applied Social Psychology
Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah
Dissertation: Method and Interpretation: Gadamer and the Limits of Methods in Qualitative Research. Advisor: Edwin E. Gantt
M.S., Existential, Phenomenological, and Depth Psychology
University of Dallas, Irving, Texas
B.S., Psychology
Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah
Summer Classics Seminar: The Spiritual Discourses of Søren Kierkegaard
St. John's College. Tutors: John Cornell and Richard McCombs
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan
Graduate Instructor
Department of Psychology, Brigham Young University
Gantt, E. E., Yanchar, S. C., & Parker, J. C. (2023). Questioning consilience and autonomy in self-determination theory: A critique and hermeneutic-phenomenological alternative. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 53(1), 21–41. https://doi.org/10.1111/jtsb.12367
Gantt, E. E., Parker, J. C., & Aguirre, K. M. (2022). Reductive naturalism and evolutionary psychology's empty ethics of enhancement: A phenomenological alternative. In B. D. Slife, F. C. Richardson, & S. C. Yanchar (Eds.), Routledge international handbook of theoretical and philosophical psychology: Critiques, problems, and alternatives to psychological ideas (pp. 209–229). Routledge.
Parker, J. C. (2022). Method and interpretation: Gadamer and the limits of methods in qualitative research [Doctoral dissertation, Brigham Young University]. BYU ScholarsArchive.
Parker, J. C. (2026, May 14–16). Despair in Kierkegaard and Tolstoy [Seminar for clinicians]. Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology (APA Division 24) Spring Meeting, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. A three-day reading seminar on Kierkegaard's The Sickness unto Death (Part One) and Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich.
Parker, J. C. (2025, May). Theoretical and philosophical psychology at Hillsdale College: An emerging model [Conference presentation]. APA Division 24 Spring Meeting, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States.
Parker, J. C. (2023, April). Understanding, spiritual cultivation, and literature [Conference presentation]. APA Division 24 Midwinter Meeting, Boston, Massachusetts, United States.
Parker, J. C. (2022, January). Do you really need a method in qualitative research? Hermeneutics, method, and the future of qualitative psychology [Job talk]. Hillsdale College, Hillsdale, Michigan, United States.
Gantt, E. E., & Parker, J. C. (2020, February). There is nothing less practical than a bad theory: Self-determination theory's failure to take agency seriously [Conference presentation]. APA Division 24 Midwinter Meeting, San Diego, California, United States.
Parker, J. C., & Parker, S. E. (2020, February). Prejudgments and understanding in psychotherapy: Some thoughts on Gadamer and clinical practice [Conference presentation]. APA Division 24 Midwinter Meeting, San Diego, California, United States.
Parker, J. C. (2020, February). The impact of intro psych: A thematic analysis of the diverse effects of psychological education [Poster session]. BYU Psychology Graduate Student Poster Session, Provo, Utah, United States.
Parker, J. C. (2018). Projects in crisis: Sartre, Kuhn, and existential psychotherapy [Conference presentation]. APA Division 24 Midwinter Meeting, Phoenix, Arizona, United States.