“Treat The root Cause Not The Symptoms”
Licensed Psychologist Mindfulness Expert Researcher & Teacher
Montana New York Virtual
Psychotherapy, Coaching & Research
Dr John Chambers Christopher is a Licensed Psychologist, Executive Coach & Consultant, and an internationally recognized expert in Mindfulness, well-being, and self-care. Working with individuals and organizations, John provides psychological services to clients in Bozeman Montana, coaching, and consultation to clients worldwide. He is licensed to practice psychotherapy in Montana and New York.
Dr. John Christopher specializes in therapy and counseling that integrates the latest findings in developmental and cognitive science with mindfulness, body-centered therapies, and interpersonal/attachment-focused interventions. John works with clients who struggle with a broad range of emotional, behavioral, and complex medical issues, including chronic pain, to help them develop awareness of their internal states and more effectively work with their emotions, lessen their stress response, improve interpersonal relations, and ultimately improve their immune function.
As a scholar and teacher, Dr. Christopher offers workshops for executives, leaders, corporations, businesses, healthcare agencies, higher education, and schools. He brings the practice of body-centered mindfulness and mindful self-care into these settings to enhance leadership skills, performance, and creativity, promote resilience and self-care, and help prevent burnout and stress-related illness.
John is a National Registrant of Health Service Psychologists and has a Certificate of Professional Qualification from the Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards. John Christopher is licensed to practice psychology in New York and Montana.
About Dr. John Christopher
Before going into full-time psychotherapy private practice in montana, John was a Professor for 23 years at Montana State University, Dartmouth, the University of Washington, and the University of Guam.
John is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and a past-president of the Society of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology (division of the APA).
John is also a Fellow of the Mind & Life Institute. He was a founding member of the Mind & Life Institute’s Ethics, Education, and Human Development Project to develop a pedagogy and curriculum to promote the Dalai Lama’s vision of teaching ethics in schools. John Christopher PhD is a licensed psychologist in the states of Montana and New York.
Work With John
Coaching
Mindfulness-focused coaching for wellness, stress management, and resilience. I tailor programs to meet your unique needs and lifestyle. My goal is to be flexible and responsive as we work together to support your health goals.
Research
Research and scholarship on well-being, moral and ethical development, self-care, resilience, and cultural sensitivity. My research is interdisciplinary in nature, pursuing themes of culture & self, identity, meaning, moral development, and psychological well-being.
Psychotherapy
As a Psychotherapist working with Individuals and Couples, I work with people struggling with a variety of concerns and problems to help them cope more effectively in today's challenging world.
Consultation
Wellness and Mindfulness-based Workshops or Consultation for organizations, businesses, health care agencies, universities, and schools. I consult internationally to help organizations promote wellness.
John’s Inspiration
For over thirty John has been bridging traditions: science and spirituality, and Western and non-Western healing traditions. To gain perspective on American society, he has traveled extensively to study indigenous practices of healing in non-Western cultures. In 2012-2013 he was a Fulbright-Nehru Scholar in India where he focused on Indian indigenous psychology. His scholarly research has also included participant observation in various forms of mindfulness training as well as fieldwork with traditional healers and shamans, having spent over twenty years learning from Balinese shamans. These experiences have provided John a vantage point to observe what is presupposed in Western understandings of health and have expanded his training in practices that are increasingly being integrated into behavioral medicine. He brings these perspectives into his teaching as well, emphasizing how Western views of the self can obscure how we are embedded in socio-political-economic practices that have consequences for health. Focusing on consumerism, health disparities, and social determinants of health, he helps others understand how working downstream with patients will never solve the deeper structural problems that contribute to mental illness and health disparities. He sees this broader program of work as critical for promoting health across our society and avoiding the pitfalls of looking at health in solely individualistic terms, such as focusing on individual health risk factors.
Scholarly Contributions
As a Scholar, John’s work spans the fields of health psychology, cultural psychology, theoretical and philosophical psychology and developmental psychology. The author of over 60 articles and chapters, he has written on the cultural, moral, and ontological underpinnings of theories of psychological well-being, moral development, and psychotherapy. John is the recipient of the 2003 Sigmund Koch Early Career Award by the Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology of the American Psychological Association. He also received Montana State University’s top research award, The Wiley Award. Most meaningful to John is the Bozeman Peacemaker Award for which his students nominated him. His scholarly work appears in leading journals in psychology and counseling and he has guest-edited special issues of the journals Theory & Psychology and The Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology. His recent article “Critical Cultural Awareness” was the lead article in a recent issue of The American Psychologist, the flagship journal of the APA. John is also on the editorial boards of The Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, The Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Counseling & Spirituality, The International Journal of Spirituality, and The Annals of Yoga and Physical Therapy.
Clinical Expertise
Individual Psychotherapy
Anxiety Concerns
Stress Management
Depression and Mood Disorders
Emotion Regulation
Chronic Pain, Insomnia, and Medical Challenges
Spirituality and Self-Growth
Self-Esteem Concerns
Transitions, Life Challenges and Coping Skills
Mindfulness Training, MBSR, Self-Care and Well-Being
Psychosomatic Medicine
Trauma, PTSD
Sexuality and Identity concerns
Codependency Concerns
Attachment Difficulties and Family of Origin Issues
Grief, Bereavement and Loss
Mindfulness Expertise for Business and Organizations
Health Care Professionals, Burnout Prevention
Men's Issues
Professional Supervision, College Students and Career
Mindfulness & Meditation Practice Routines
Professional Services
Mindfulness-Based Consultation, Workshops & Program Development
John Christopher PhD provides wellness and mindfulness-based consultation and program development for organizations, businesses, healthcare agencies, universities, and schools in the US and internationally, with a special interest in creating leaders who lead mindfully, and inspire, support, and encourage a positive workplace culture. Consults throughout the US and internationally to help organizations, businesses, and executives/CEOs implement programs for stress reduction, mindfulness training, wellness, disease prevention, burnout, resilience, and effective self-care practices. His consultation focus helps organizations, institutions, and businesses assess their healthcare needs and design programs to improve the well-being, performance, and morale of employees. Dr. John Christopher also lectures and provides customized workshops and retreats using the latest research on neuroscience, Mindfulness, and somatic-based approaches to restore health and well-being. CONTINUE READING
Supervision For Professional Development
John Christopher, Ph.D provides professional supervision to psychologists and counselors helping them integrate mind-body practices into their work with clients. He provides Doctoral and Master's level supervision for students who are accruing hours towards becoming a psychologist or licensed professional counselor (LPC or LCPC) in the state of Montana. As an expert in mind-body medicine and stress management and a practitioner and teacher of Mindfulness and yoga for over 30 years, John is able to help newly licensed counselors integrate mind-body or somatic therapies into their counseling work. He has been supervising students since 1991 and creates a safe space for them to learn how to work with their emotional reactions and internal experiences. In his 20+ years as a professor, he pioneered the application of mindfulness to counselor training in his graduate counseling class “Mind-Body Medicine and the Art of Self-Care” and was featured in the American Counseling Association’s Counseling Today magazine. Before going into private practice full-time, Dr. Christopher was a Professor for 23 years at Dartmouth, the University of Washington, Montana State University, and the University of Guam. He has a PhD in Counseling Psychology from the University of Texas, a Masters in Counseling and Consulting Psychology from Harvard, and an honors independent major at the University of Michigan.
Mindfulness-Focused Coaching
Mindfulness is the ability to become aware of present moment experience with acceptance. It is typically cultivated through meditative, contemplative, and yogic practices. I began practicing meditation and yoga in 1981 while an undergraduate student in Ann Arbor and found they literally saved my life. In 1984 I became a yoga and meditation teacher and in 1996 I added qigong to my practice. In 1998 I began teaching Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and training counselors and psychotherapists how to use mindfulness practices in the service of self-care. My training in these practices has involved studying with teachers in India, Thailand, Bali, Mexico, and the United States. I incorporate mindfulness practices and principles into my work with individuals and couples. And I provide consultation to corporations and businesses, health care agencies, higher education and schools on bringing mindfulness into these settings to enhance performance and creativity, promote resilience and self-care, and prevent burnout and stress-related illness. I also provide mindfulness-based coaching to individuals.
Therapy, Counseling & Psychological Consultation In Bozeman Montana
Licensed Psychologist John Chambers Christopher, Ph.D maintains a private therapy and counseling practice in Bozeman Montana, and coaches worldwide via telemedicine. He treats a range of emotional and behavioral concerns in his therapy practice including anxiety, stress depression, well-being, self-care, multicultural psychology, transitions, spirituality, chronic pain, health concerns, psychosomatic medicine, mind-body medicine, emotion regulation, loss, and grief. Integrating his extensive mind-body training and research with the best of traditional psychotherapy and counseling techniques, he helps his clients reduce their stress response and improve immune functioning for optimal emotional and physical health. John works with adults using psychodynamic and interpersonal principles combined with research on social and cognitive development, including the neurobiology of attachment. He has extensive training in a number of body-centered or somatic practices including, Focusing, Hakomi, MBSR, and Mindful Self-Compassion. CONTINUE READING
Consultation, Keynotes, Workshops, Leadership Workshops & Executive Coaching
Dr. John Christopher offers wellness and mindfulness-based consultation and program development for organizations, businesses, executives/CEOs, health care agencies, universities, and schools in the US and Internationally with a special interest in creating thoughtful leaders who lead mindfully, and inspire, support, and encourage a positive workplace culture. John teaches mindful leadership, resilience, and stress management helping organizations and companies transform their workplace culture and create a healthier work/life balance. Dr. Christopher provides executive coaching with a focus on burnout protection and consults throughout the US and internationally to help organizations, businesses, and individuals implement programs for stress reduction, mindfulness training, wellness, disease prevention, burnout, resilience, and effective self-care practices.
About Cultural Psychology
Cultural psychology provides conceptual resources for helping us realize that our most fundamental ways of thinking always presuppose particular cultural values and assumptions. Discerning these presuppositions underlying our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors is a discipline—it requires an ongoing commitment to expose ourselves to those who differ from us in important ways. When we engage in cross-cultural and historical study we discover that in different places and in different times people have held vastly different understandings of such important notions as health, the self, the mind, and the good life. Awareness of this range of variation can help us to not only better understand what is potentially at stake in cross-cultural interactions, but it can also allow us to better understand ourselves.
To gain perspective on American society, I have spent a considerable amount of time traveling internationally and studying indigenous practices of health in non-Western cultures. My scholarly research has also included participant observation in various forms of mindfulness training as well as fieldwork with traditional healers and shamans.
These experiences have provided me with a vantage point to observe what is presupposed in Western understandings of health and have expanded my training in methods that are increasingly being used in behavioral medicine. I continued this line of work while on a Fulbright-Nehru Award in India studying Indian indigenous psychology. I bring these perspectives into my teaching as well, emphasizing how Western views of the self can obscure how we are embedded in socio-political-economic practices that have consequences for health. By including units on such topics as consumerism, health disparities, social determinants of health, and community-based participatory research, I try to help students understand how working downstream with patients will never solve the deeper structural problems that contribute to mental illness and health disparities in the first place. I see this broader program of work as critical for promoting health across our society and avoiding the pitfalls of looking at health in solely individualistic terms, such as focusing on individual health risk factors.
About Interdisciplinary Research
My research is interdisciplinary. I pursue themes that I first addressed through an undergraduate major I designed at the University of Michigan entitled The Psychological and Philosophical Foundations of Culture. As a social scientist, my passion is in exploring how culture shapes the self, identity, meaning, moral development, and psychological well-being. Much of my scholarly work attempts to examine Western psychology from a cross-cultural and historical perspective. I have been particularly interested in how Western assumptions about the nature of the person, or self, and the good life, underlie Western psychological theories, research, and practice. In particular, I have examined how individualism influences a variety of psychological fields.
Most of my current research considers the limitations of current understandings of positive psychology and psychological well-being and explores the nature of psychological well-being in non-individualistic cultures. Other areas that I have addressed include moral development, character education, and psychotherapy. I have spent a considerable amount of time studying indigenous psychological traditions in non-Western cultures. This has included participant observation in various forms of mindfulness training as well as fieldwork learning from traditional healers and shamans. This research has provided me with a vantage point from which to get more clarity about what is presupposed in Western understanding of well-being but has also expanded my training in methods that are increasingly being used in behavioral medicine. I see this program of work as critical for the practice of counseling and psychotherapy in general and for working with clients of differing ethnic backgrounds and international clients in particular. Moreover, it has implications for related fields such as public health, health promotion/education, character education, and personality and developmental psychology.
More recently my focus has been developing alternative notions of the self and of well-being that aim to transcend many of the conceptual limitations of much of current theory and research. While this work has been over twenty-five years in the making, it has only been in the past five that I have been able to integrate the two main strains in my intellectual formation – philosophical hermeneutics and interactivism – into what I see as a compelling framework.
One area where I’ve applied my theoretical work is in mind/body medicine and stress management which I’ve been teaching for over 25 years. I bring over 30 years of experience practicing meditation and yoga and 15 years of practicing qigong to the practice of integrative medicine. I have been pioneering the application of mindfulness to counselor training. My graduate counseling class “Mind-Body Medicine and the Art of Self-Care” was recently featured in an article in Counseling Today, the monthly magazine of the American Counseling Association. My research articles on using mindfulness practices in the training of counselors appear in the Journal of Counseling & Development, The Journal of Humanistic Psychology, and The Teachers College Record. The 2006 article “Teaching self-care through mindfulness practices: The application of yoga, meditation and qi gong to counselor training” is currently listed on the Journal of Humanistic Psychology’s website as its most frequently read article.
I have attempted to publish my work in a variety of journals. Some, like the Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology and Theory & Psychology, I chose because they allow me to pursue the furthest reaches of my conceptual work. I have chosen to engage with outlets such as The American Psychologist, The Journal of Counseling and Development, and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, and Training because I am deeply committed to making theoretical psychology practically meaningful to practitioners and bridging the gap that can sometimes exist between theoretical scholarship and the actual practice of psychotherapy and counseling.
About Interactivism
Interactivism maintains that much of mainstream psychology is dominated by substance and structure ontologies in contrast to process ontologies (Bickhard, 2002, 2003a; Bickhard & Christopher, 1994). In the natural sciences, substance and structure ontologies such as phlogiston theories of fire, caloric theories of heat, and fluid theories of magnetism have all been superseded by process models in which substance models have been replaced by process and patterns and organizations of process. Psychology has yet to develop a generally accepted process ontology. One implication of this is that much of psychology is left trying to establish relationships between “things” that have been reified such as mind and body, culture and self, inner representations and external realities, facts and values, and so forth (see also Adams & Markus, 2001; Hermans, 2001; Sawyer, 2002). Once split by these reifications into substantial domains, entities, or realms of entities, however, it has proven to be impossible to reintegrate them. Interactivism’s process ontology is an attempt to reconceptualize psychological phenomena in such a way that these “things” and the dualities among them are overcome. In particular, they are reconceptualized as poles or aspects of process, and of organizations of interacting process, rather than as entities in any foundational sense. In other words, structures are emergent stabilizations of process.
Building on the philosophy of pragmatism and formed in dialogue with Piagetian principles, the interactivist view (Bickhard, 1980, 1992a, 1992b, 2000; Bickhard & Christopher, 1994; Campbell & Bickhard, 1986; Campbell, Christopher, & Bickhard, 2002; Christopher & Bickhard, 2007) considers development at its heart to be characterized by the ability to abstract from or transcend the patterns of interaction and thought that we are currently engaged in so that we can move to a “higher” level where we can reflect upon what we had previously taken for granted. Piaget (2000) referred to this ability as “reflective abstraction.” It can be defined as “the relationship between adjacent levels of knowing…in which properties resident in a given level, implicit in the organization or functioning of that level, are explicitly known at the next higher level” (Campbell & Bickhard, 1986, p. 85).
My Publications
Christopher, J. C., & Howe, K. (in press). Future directions for a more multiculturally competent (and humble) positive psychology. In & J. Teramoto-Pedrotti& L. M. Edwards (Eds.), Perspectives on the Intersection of Multiculturalism & Positive Psychology. Springer.
Christopher, J. C., Wendt, D. C., Marecek, J. & Goodman, D. M. (2014). Critical cultural awareness: Contributions to a globalizing psychology. American Psychologist. doi: 10.1037/a0036851
Campbell, J. C., & Christopher, J. C., (2012). Teaching Mindfulness to Create Effective Counselors. Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 34 (3), 213-226.
Christopher, J. C., Chrisman, J., Trotter, M., Schure, M., Dahlen, P. & Christopher, S. (2011). The long-term influence of mindfulness training on counselors and psychotherapists: A qualitative inquiry. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 51 (3), 318-349.
Christopher, J. C. & Maris, J. (2010). Integrating Mindfulness As Self-Care Into Counselling and Psychotherapy Training. Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, 10, 114-125.
Christopher, J. C. (2010). Situating positive psychology. In C. R. Snyder, S. Lopez & J. Teramoto-Pedrotti (Eds.), Positive Psychology: The Scientific and Practical Explorations of Human Strengths, 2nd Edition (pp. 80-82). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Christopher, J. C. (2010). Peak experiences, mindfulness practices, and the search for meaning. In M. Trotter-Mathison, J. M. Koch, S. Sanger, & T. M. Skovholt (Eds.), Voices from the field: Defining moments in counselor and therapist development (pp. 37-40). New York: Routledge.
Christopher, J. C., Foster, G., & James, S. (2009). A hermeneutic approach to culture and psychotherapy. In H. D. Friedman & P. K. Revera (Eds.), Abnormal psychology: New research (pp. 225-261). New York: Nova Science Publishers.
Chrisman, J. A., Christopher, J. C., & Lichtenstein, S. J. (2009). Qigong as a mindfulness practice for counseling students: A qualitative inquiry. Journal of Humanistic Psychology. 49, 236-257.
Smith, A. J., Thorngren, J., Christopher, J. C. (2008). Rural mental health counseling. In I. Marini & M. A. Stebnicki (Eds.), The Professional counselor’s desk reference (pp. 263-274). New York: Springer.
Campbell, R. L., & Christopher, J. C. (in press). Fragmentation and hyperspecialties in psychology and the study of mind. New Ideas in Psychology.
Türk Smith, S., Smith, K. D., Christopher, J. C. (in press). Respecting the complexity of values systems: Psychological realism and the case of Turkish culture. In S.J. Kulich & M.H. Prosser (Eds.). Intercultural research Vol. 3: Cross cultural values research –Domains, applications and regional values systems. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.
Christopher, J. C. (2008). Culture, moral topographies, and interactive personhood. Journal of Theoretical & Philosophical psychology, 27, 168-191.
Christopher, J. C., & Campbell, R. C. (2008). An interactivist-hermeneutic metatheory for positive psychology. Theory & Psychology, 18, 675-697.
Christopher, J. C., & Hickinbottom, S. (2008). Positive psychology, ethnocentrism, and the disguised ideology of individualism. Theory & Psychology, 18, 563-589.
Christopher, J. C., Slife, B. D., & Richardson, F. C. (2008). Thinking through positive psychology. Theory & Psychology, 18, 555-561.
Christopher, J. C., Slife, B. D., & Richardson, F. C. (Eds.). (2008). Special issue on positive psychology. Theory & Psychology, 18(5).
Hoshmand, L. T., & Christopher, J. C. (2008). Theorizing on the cultural. Journal of Theoretical & Philosophical psychology, 27, 141-145.
Hoshmand, L. T., & Christopher, J. C. (Eds). (2008). Special issue: Theorizing on the Cultural. Journal of Theoretical & Philosophical psychology.
Schure, M., Christopher, J. C., Christopher, S. E. (2008). Mind/body medicine and the art of self-care: Teaching mindfulness to counseling students through yoga, meditation and qigong. Journal of Counseling & Development, 86, 47-56.
Christopher, J. C. (2007). Situating positive psychology. In C. R. Snyder & S. Lopez (Eds.), Positive psychology: The scientific and practical explorations of human strengths (pp. 90-91). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Christopher, J. C., & Bickhard, M. H. (2007). Culture, self, and identity: Interactivist contributions to a metatheory for cultural psychology. Culture & Psychology, 13, 259-295.
Christopher, J. C., Foster, G., & James, S. (2007). A hermeneutic approach to culture and psychotherapy. In A. Columbus (Ed.), Advances in Psychology Research, Volume 48(pp. 1-38). New York: Science Publishers.
Smith, K. D., Türk-Smith, S., & Christopher, J. C. (2007). What Defines the Good Person? Cross-Cultural Comparisons of Experts’ Models with Lay Prototypes. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 38, 333-360.
Christopher, J. C. (2006). Hermeneutics and the moral dimension of cultural psychotherapy. In L. T. Hoshmand (Ed.), Culture, Psychotherapy, and Counseling: Critical and Integrative Perspectives (pp. 179-203). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Christopher, J. C., Christopher, S. E., Dunnagan, T., & Schure, M. (2006). Teaching self-care through mindfulness practices: The application of yoga, meditation and qi gong to counselor training. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 46, 494-509.
Christopher, J. C., & Smith, A. (2006). A hermeneutic approach to culture and psychotherapy. In R. Moody, & S. Palmer (Eds.), Race, culture and psychotherapy: Critical perspective in multicultural practice (pp. 265-280). New York: Brunner/Routledge.
Newsome, S., Christopher, J. C., Dahlen, P., & Christopher, S. (2006). Teaching counselors self-care through mindfulness practices: the application of mindfulness-based stress reduction to counselor training. Teachers College Record. 108, 1881-1900.
Christopher, J. C. (2005, Spring). Situating positive psychology. Naming & Nurturing: The e-Newsletter of the Positive Psychology Section of the American Psychological Association’s Counseling Psychology Division 17, 2.
Christopher, S., Knows His Gun McCormick, A., Smith, A., & Christopher, J. C. (2005). Development of an interviewer training manual for a cervix health project on the Apsáalooke reservation. Health Promotion Practice, 6, 414-422.
Christopher, J. C. (2004). Moral visions of developmental psychology. In B. Slife, J. S. Reber, & F. C. Richardson (Eds.), Critical thinking about psychology: Hidden assumptions and plausible alternatives (pp. 207-231). Washington, D. C.: APA Press.
Christopher, J. C., Nelson, T., & Nelson, M. D. (2004). Culture and character education: Problems of interpretation in a multicultural society. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 23, 81-101.
Christopher, J. C., Richardson, F. C., & Christopher, S. E. (2003). Philosophical Hermeneutics: A Metatheory to Transcend Dualism and Individualism in Western Psychology. History & Theory of Psychology Eprint Archive (HTP Prints). http://htpprints.yorku.ca/.
Campbell, R. L., Christopher, J. C., & Bickhard, M. H. (2002). Values and the self: An interactivist foundation for moral development. Theory & Psychology, 12, 795-823.
Christopher, J. C., Manaster, G. J., Campbell, R. L., & Weinfeld, M. (2002). Peak experiences, social interest, and moral reasoning: An exploratory study. The Journal of Individual Psychology, 58, 35-51
Smith, K. D., Christopher, J. C., Richardson, F. C., Christopher, S. E., Della Fave, A., Massimini, F, Bhawuk, D. P. S. (2002). Post-Newtonian metatheories in the natural sciences and in cross-cultural psychology: Post-Newtonian worldviews. In P. Boski, F. J. R. van der Vijver, and A. M. Chodynicka (Eds), New directions in cross-cultural psychology (pp. 107-125). Warsaw: Polish Psychological Association.
Christopher, J. C. (2001). Culture and psychotherapy: Toward a hermeneutic approach. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, and Training, 38, 115-128.
Christopher, J. C., Bickhard, M. H., & Lambeth, G. S. (2001). Otto Kernberg’s object relations theory: A metapsychological critique. Theory & Psychology, 11, 687-711.
Christopher, S., Christopher, J. C., & Dunnagan, T. (2000). Culture’s impact on health risk appraisal psychological well-being questions. American Journal of Health Behavior, 24, 338-348.
Campbell, R. L., and Christopher, J. C. (1999). Factional science, intradisciplinary cooperation, and the study of mind. Dialogues in Psychology [Online], 15.0, 56 paragraphs. Available: http://hubcap.clemson.edu/psych/Dialogues/1.0.html [1999, September 11].
Christopher, J. C. (1999). Situating psychological well-being; Exploring the cultural roots of its theory and research. Journal of Counseling and Development, 77, 141-152.
Richardson, F. C., & Christopher, J. C. (1999). Clashing views of social inquiry. In F. C. Richardson, B. J. Fowers, & C. Guignon, Re-envisioning psychology: Moral dimensions of theory and practice (173-198). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Christopher, J. C., & Fowers, B. J. (1998). Placing culture at the center of multiculturalism: Moral visions and intercultural dialogue. Dialogues in Psychology[Online], 1.0, 56 paragraphs. Available: http://hubcap.clemson.edu/psych/Dialogues/1.0.html [1998, September 14].
Lightsey, O. R., & Christopher, J. C. (1997). Stress buffers and dysphoria in a non-Western population. Journal of Counseling and Development, 75, 451-459
Schmitz, S. E., & Christopher, J. C. (1997). Trouble in Smurftown: The moral visions of youth gangs on Guam. Child Welfare, 76, 411-428 .
Campbell, R. L., & Christopher, J. C. (1996). Moral development theory: A critique of its Kantian presuppositions. Developmental Review, 16, 1-47.
Campbell, R. L., & Christopher, J. C. (1996). Beyond the noumenal self: Eudaimonism and the prospects for moral personality. Developmental Review, 16, 108-123.
Christopher, J. C. (1996). Counseling’s inescapable moral visions. Journal of Counseling and Development, 75, 17-25.
Christopher, J. C., & Fowers, B. J. (1996). Multiculturalism, culture and moral visions. In What is Multiculturalism in Psychology and Education? Proceedings of the 12th Annual Teachers College Roundtable Discussion on Cross-Cultural Psychology and Education (pp. 11-22). New York: Columbia University.
Christopher, J. C. (1995). Not just another book on the self. Contemporary Psychology, 40, 1060-1061.
Bickhard, M. H., & Christopher, J. C. (1994). The influence of early experience on personality development. New Ideas in Psychology, 12, 229-252.
Christopher, J. C., & Bickhard, M. H. (1994). The persistence of basic mistakes: Rexploring psychopathology in Individual Psychology. Individual Psychology, 50, 223-231.
Richardson, F. C., & Christopher, J. C. (1993). Social theory as practice: Metatheoretical options for social inquiry. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 13, 137-153.
Stark, K. D., Christopher, J. C., & Dempsey, M. (1993). Depression. In A. Bellack & M. Hersen (Eds.), Handbook of behavior therapy in the psychiatric setting (pp. 427-452). New York: Plenum.
Stark, K. D., Dempsey, M., & Christopher, J. C. (1993). Depressive disorders. In R. T. Ammerman, C. G. Last, & M. Hersen (Eds.), Handbook of prescriptive treatment for children and adolescents (pp. 115-143). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Stark, K. D., Humphrey, L. L., Laurent, J., Livingston, R., Christopher, J. C. (1993). Cognitive, behavioral, and family factors in the differentiation of depressive and anxiety disorders during childhood. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 61, 878-886.
Christopher, J. C., & Bickhard, M. H. (1992). Remodeling the as if in Adler's concept of the life style. Individual Psychology, 48, 76-85.
Christopher, J. C., Bickhard, M. H., & Lambeth, G. S. (1992). Splitting Kernberg; A critique of Otto Kernberg's notion of splitting. Psychotherapy, 29, 481-485.
Christopher, J. C. (1993). The role of individualism in psychological well-being: Exploring the interplay of ideology, culture, and social science. Dissertation Abstracts International, 53(12-A), 4206.
Spradling, V., & Christopher, J. C. (1990). Working with shyness. In The clearing house for structured thematic groups and innovated programs in mental health. Richmond: George Mason University Press.
Christopher, J. C. (1985). The mind-body relationship and its influence upon lifestyles. Synthesis, 1, 14-17.
My Research
My research is interdisciplinary in nature. I pursue themes that I first addressed through an undergraduate major I designed at the University of Michigan entitled The Psychological and Philosophical Foundations of Culture. As a social scientist, my passion is in exploring how culture shapes the self, identity, meaning, moral development and psychological well-being. Much of my scholarly work attempts to examine Western psychology from a cross-cultural and historical perspective. I have been particularly interested in how Western assumptions about the nature of the person, or self, and the good life, underlie Western psychological theories, research, and practice. In particular, I have examined how individualism influences a variety of psychological fields.
Most of my current research considers the limitations of current understandings of positive psychology and psychological well-being and explores the nature of psychological well-being in non-individualistic cultures. Other areas that I have addressed include moral development, character education, and psychotherapy. I have spent a considerable amount of time studying indigenous psychological traditions in non-Western cultures. This has included participant observation in various forms of mindfulness training as well as fieldwork learning from traditional healers and shamans. This research has provided me with a vantage point from which to get more clarity about what is presupposed in Western understanding of well-being but has also expanded my training in methods that are increasingly being used in behavioral medicine. I see this program of work as critical for the practice of counseling and psychotherapy in general and for working with clients of differing ethnic backgrounds and international clients in particular. Moreover, it has implications for related fields such as public health, health promotion/education, character education, and personality and developmental psychology.
More recently my focus has been developing alternative notions of the self and of well-being that aim to transcend many of the conceptual limitations of much of current theory and research. While this work has been over twenty-five years in the making, it has only been in the past five that I have been able to integrate the two main strains in my intellectual formation – philosophical hermeneutics and interactivism – into what I see as a compelling framework.
One area where I’ve applied my theoretical work is in mind/body medicine and stress management which I’ve been teaching for over 25 years. I bring over 30 years of experience practicing meditation and yoga and 15 years of practicing qigong to the practice of integrative medicine. I have been pioneering the application of mindfulness to counselor training. My graduate counseling class “Mind-Body Medicine and the Art of Self-Care” was recently featured in an article in Counseling Today, the monthly magazine of the American Counseling Association. My research articles on using mindfulness practices in the training of counselors appear in the Journal of Counseling & Development, The Journal of Humanistic Psychology, and The Teachers College Record. The 2006 article “Teaching self-care through mindfulness practices: The application of yoga, meditation and qi gong to counselor training” is currently listed on the Journal of Humanistic Psychology’s website as its most frequently read article.
I have attempted to publish my work in a variety of journals. Some, like the Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology and Theory & Psychology, I chose because they allow me to pursue the furthest reaches of my conceptual work. Other outlets, such as The American Psychologist, The Journal of Counseling and Development and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, and Training I chose because I am deeply committed to making theoretical psychology practically meaningful to practitioners and bridging the divide that can sometimes exist between theoretical scholarship and the actual practice of psychotherapy and counseling.