Psychology of Religion by Jacob A. Belzen

Author:Jacob A. Belzen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer US, Boston, MA

Some Changes, Hunting Research Funding, and Juggling Research Projects

1985 marked a change for me: Bedford College merged with Royal Holloway. This caused great dismay in the psychology department. We did not want to exchange our beautiful and convenient central London campus in Regent’s Park for an even more beautiful but horrendously inconvenient campus in . . . Egham, Surrey. Where on earth is Egham? Early attempts to find the Royal Holloway campus were frustrating; it took well over an hour to drive there from central London, and the college was very well tucked away and poorly signposted. Things improved in the ensuing decades, and academically the college has emerged reliably as one of the top ten U.K. universities. I tried to cope with the long commute by arranging a half-time appointment at Kings College, at which I was already teaching part-time, with the other half of my time at Royal Holloway. This helped to move my research in a direction in which psychology of religion became a primary focus. I was thankful to Kings for the opportunity to teach and develop my interests in the psychology of religion, and benefited from the input and support of Peter Clarke, now a very eminent sociologist of religion. However, everyone who has tried a joint appointment will know how awkward it is being “half a person” in two places. I missed being (full-time) in an academic psychology department. Eventually in the early 1990s, I asked Royal Holloway if I might resume my full-time appointment there, and gave up the King’s appointment.

At Royal Holloway, my colleagues agreed to humor me and see what would happen if an optional course in the psychology of religion were offered to the final-year psychology students. To everyone’s amazement (including mine) it proved to be one of the most popular courses. I ran it until my complete retirement in 2007, and it remained very popular. For a time it was the only psychology of religion course being offered in the United Kingdom as part of a psychology degree. Some students said they had chosen to do their psychology degree at Royal Holloway because it offered the course in the psychology of religion. Students said they chose the course because it was useful for careers in clinical and related areas of psychology. Even if they weren’t religious believers themselves, they thought religion was an interesting and important feature in the lives of many people. Psychology of religion was very seldom offered in U.K. undergraduate courses, and when it was offered, it was taught in religious studies departments, rather than psychology departments. Thus Fraser Watts’ course at Cambridge comes under the aegis of the theology faculty, and Brendan Callaghan’s course at Heythrop College has only recently emerged from the religious studies and philosophy umbrella to form part of a psychology degree. Heythrop offers a unique postgraduate degree, as well, an MA solely in the psychology of religion. Brendan has recently moved to Oxford, and Joanna Collicutt-McGrath continued to care for the psychology of religion at Heythrop.

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