New Psychology Professor Shines Spotlight on the Soul

Interviewed September 2006

In her teaching and in her private practice, George Callan is interested in addressing an overlooked aspect of health: the soul. She explains, "You can't speak about health without speaking about soul, body, mind and spirit."

Bastyr's health psychology program already does incorporate a focus on the soul, but Callan, who was hired to start teaching at Bastyr in fall 2006, would like to expand and deepen that emphasis. Since part of her job is designing new courses for the program, she will have that opportunity.

"I see a real opening here at Bastyr," she says. "This interest in soul work is already in the courses and the consciousness of the students. It is perfect for me to step in and teach the things I love to teach. I would like to interweave the soul material into a curriculum that is grounded in the scholarship of anthropology, philosophy, literature and religious studies."

A graduate of the University of Santa Clara (MA) and Pacifica Graduate Institute (PhD) and a psychotherapist for the past 30 years and teacher for the past 15 years, she is certainly qualified and well-versed in matters of human potential.

"All my life I wanted to be of service," she says. However, during her youth she hadn't crystallized that intention into something as specific as becoming a therapist and teacher. She confesses that pursuing her master's degree was really a matter of getting out of the house, and taking some time away from her two babies in diapers for awhile to see "if I still had a brain," she says, as well as to be around other adults. Before long, she realized she'd found her soul's path. "I fell in love with psychology and have been involved with it ever since."

Immediately after graduating with her MA degree, Callan opened a private practice. She started teaching when she came to Washington in 1989. It felt to her as natural as breathing. "I think I am just naturally a teacher," she says.

Yet it was awhile before she found her way to Bastyr University's psychology program, which couldn't be a better match. She shares her observations so far: "It's an extraordinary environment. Students here are ready to learn and to make a contribution to the world. When you ask them ‘Why are you here (at Bastyr)?' a lot of times they say they want to contribute something. That is rare."

Relocating from California to Washington could have been a rude awakening, in terms of the weather, but Callan is not the typical Californian. In fact, she embraces the drizzly days that are characteristic of this region. "I love the rain. I love the weather. I am ready for it to be really fall," she enthuses.

Perhaps this excitement about Northwest weather is due to the fact that she is actually a Northwest native. Callan was born in Tacoma but her family moved to California when she was a toddler. She didn't return to the Northwest until 1989. She established a private practice and began teaching as an adjunct in the MA and PhD programs at Antioch University in 1990. There she taught systems theory, human development, marriage and family therapy, Jungian psychology and object relations theory. She developed and taught the marriage and family classes in the MA program at Pacifica Graduate Institute and is currently designing and teaching the supervision and practicum classes in the their new PhD Depth Psychotherapy program.

Although her career wasn't premeditated, Callan has been drawn to matters of the soul since she was young. As a child, she developed a keen sense of intuition and an ability to tune into "the invisibles," as she puts it. She put that ability to work as a psychotherapist in private practice and then in her doctoral studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute. She received her PhD in depth psychology, which has its roots in philosophy and mythology with a focus on the psychologies of Freud and Jung. This intensified her ability to tune into what's below the surface. "Depth psychology is a way to look through things or events. You become interested in the archetypes that inform them and explore the alchemical processes that shape our lives," she says. "You also work to elicit the symbolic forces behind emotional or mental symptoms, to see the symbols in people's dreams, to consider each individual's story in the context of the stories that have fed humanity since the beginning."

Depth psychology has its roots in shamanism, she explains – and with the ancient tribal concept that all things are alive and full of soul. "There's that same shamanic quality of working with the invisibles—archetypes, spirit and nature, and understanding the connection between individuals and their cultures."

In bringing that focus to Bastyr's already holistic psychology program, she offers a true gift, and one she is glad to bring. It certainly sounds like a soulful union in the making.