Dr. Pam King’s Key Takeaways

About the Thrive Center

About Dr. Pam King

Dr. Pam King is Executive Director the Thrive Center and is Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science at Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.  Follow her @drpamking.

About With & For

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Episode Highlights

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Books by Dr. Tina Bryson

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The Center for Connection

About the Thrive Center

About Dr. Pam King

Dr. Pam King is Executive Director the Thrive Center and is Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science at Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.  Follow her @drpamking.

About With & For

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

How can we grow into our full potential?—living up to what we know is the best version of ourselves, actualizing our goals, and expressing our deepest purpose in a life of impact and love?

Grounded in cognitive science and psychology, best-selling author, podcaster, educator and researcher Scott Barry Kaufman believes that we need to redefine our understanding of greatness and excellence to include our whole selves—our emotions, dreams, failures, and gifts—all to live a life that is fully human, fully yourself.

In this conversation with Scott Barry Kaufman, we discuss:

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About Scott Barry Kaufman

Scott Barry Kaufman is a cognitive scientist, author, and humanistic psychologist exploring the depths of human potential. He is the founding director of the Center for Human Potential and a the best-selling author, speaker, and podcaster. He hosts The Psychology Podcast. And he is author and/or editor of numerous books, including his celebrated *Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization, Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined*, as well as his latest books, Choose Growth: A Workbook for Transcending Trauma, Fear, and Self-Doubt and Rise Above: Overcome a Victim Mindset, Empower Yourself, and Realize Your Full Potential. If you’re interested in more from Scott, visit scottbarrykaufman.com.

About the Thrive Center

About Dr. Pam King

Dr. Pam King is Executive Director the Thrive Center and is Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science at Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.  Follow her @drpamking.

About With & For

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Meaningful relationships are mutual. Balanced with give and take, equal influence between partners, and a vibrant dance of loving responsiveness and caring attention.

Marriage and Family Therapist and professor Dr. Jessica ChenFeng is calling us toward a more justice-oriented approach to relationships and to mental health and well-being, She invites us to open-hearted and empathic perspective taking, and seeking an integrated wholeness that incorporates all of who we are—highlighting the gift of mutuality in our most intimate relationships in marriage and family life.

In this conversation with Jessica ChenFeng, we discuss:

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About Jessica ChenFeng

Dr. Jessica ChenFeng is Associate Professor at the School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy at Fuller Seminary, and is also Director of the Asian American Well-being Collaboratory at Fuller’s Asian American Center. Prior to her time at Fuller she was a professor at Loma Linda University and California State University, Northridge.

Jessica is known for her clinical expertise and scholarship integrating socio-contextual lenses of race, gender, and generation into work with minoritized individuals, families, and communities. In the last few years, her primary clinical focus has been the well-being of physicians, especially through pandemic-related trauma and burnout. She’s co-authored two books, Finding Your Voice as a Beginning Marriage and FamilyTherapist, as well as Asian American Identities, Relationships, and Cultural Legacies: Reflections from Marriage and Family Therapists. She received the 2022 American Family Therapy Academy Early Career Award.

About the Thrive Center

About Dr. Pam King

Dr. Pam King is Executive Director the Thrive Center and is Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science at Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.  Follow her @drpamking.

About With & For

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Romantic relationships are sacred, powerful, and life-giving. But I don’t have to tell you how difficult it is to love and let yourself be loved.

Marriage and family therapist Dr. Terry Hargrave has been helping couples in crisis restore broken relationships for decades, teaching them how to get unstuck, improve communication, and move beyond destructive coping mechanisms—to find reciprocity, self-affirming confidence, emotional regulation, and a joyful, lasting love.

In this conversation with Terry Hargrave, we discuss:

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About Terry Hargrave

Dr. Terry Hargrave. Until he retired recently, he was the Evelyn and Frank Freed Professor of Marriage and Family Therapy at Fuller Seminary, and a nationally recognized therapist known for his pioneering work with intergenerational families.

He’s most well known as the founder of Restoration Therapy, which combines advantages of Attachment Theory, Emotional Regulation, and Mindfulness—all in an efficient and organized format that allows both the therapist and client to understand old habits and destructive patterns of behavior and promote change in both individual mental and spiritual health, in order to transform our most intimate relationships.

Terry has authored or co-authored over 35 professional articles and fifteen books including Restoration Therapy: Understanding and Guiding Healing in Marriage and Family Therapy and Families and Forgiveness: Healing Wounds in the Intergenerational Family.

In his latest book project, he worked with his wife Sharon, also a licensed marriage and family therapist. It’s called The Mindful Marriage: Create Your Best Relationship Through Understanding and Managing Yourself, and it’s a practical manual co-written with Ron and Nan Deal about how they healed their relationship after almost losing it.

He’s presented internationally on relationship dynamics, family and marriage restoration, the complexities of intergenerational families, healing and reconciliation, and the process of aging.

His work has been featured on ABC News, 20/20, Good Morning America, and CBS This Morning as well as several national magazines and newspapers.

You can learn more about Terry Hargrave and his work—and find books, practical resources, and professional training materials at: restorationtherapytraining.com.

About the Thrive Center

About Dr. Pam King

Dr. Pam King is Executive Director the Thrive Center and is Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science at Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.  Follow her @drpamking.

About With & For

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

You can’t be moral on your own. That’s a radical idea in this time of moral outrage, but thriving in public life requires a sense of mutual accountability, belonging, and hospitality for each other.

Mona Siddiqui is a professor of religion and society, an author, commentator, and public intellectual, and she suggests that the virtues of loyalty, gratitude, hospitality, and hope can lead us through the common struggle of being human together, living forward into a thriving life of public faith and renewed moral imagination.

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About Mona Siddiqui

Mona Siddiqui is Professor of Islamic and Interreligious Studies, Assistant Principal for Religion and Society, and Dean international for the Middle-East at the University of Edinburgh.

Her research areas are primarily in the field of Islamic jurisprudence and ethics and Christian-Muslim relations. She’s the author of many books, including Human Struggle: Christian and Muslim Perspectives,Hospitality in Islam: Welcoming in God’s Name, and My Way: A Muslim Woman’s Journey. A scholar of theology, philosophy, and ethics, she’s conducted international research on Islam and Christianity, gratitude, loyalty and fidelity, hope, reconciliation and inter-faith theological dialogue, and human struggle.

Mona is well known internationally as a public intellectual and a speaker on issues around religion, ethics and public life and regularly appears as a media commentator on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio Scotland’s Thought for the Day and The Moral Maze.

A recipient of numerous awards and recognition, she is a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, she gave the prestigious Gifford Lectures in Natural Theology. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as an International Honorary Member. And Dr. Siddiqui was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire, which is just steps below the highest Knighting—specifically for her public interfaith efforts.

To learn more, I’d highly recommend her books, but you can also follow her on X @monasiddiqui7.

About the Thrive Center

About Dr. Pam King

Dr. Pam King is Executive Director the Thrive Center and is Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science at Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.  Follow her @drpamking.

About With & For

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

Applying neuroscience and psychology to education and formation, pioneering researcher Dr. Mary Helen Immordino-Yang draws connections between emotions, relationships, brains, stories, meaning, and purpose to shed light on how we learn, grow, and thrive.

Her research on the brain shows how we’re woven together in an intricate and glorious network of life, and when we synthesize the neurological, the psychological, the physical, and the social, we’re able to come to a deeper and more impactful understanding of human development and flourishing.

In this conversation with Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, we discuss:

About Mary Helen Immordino-Yang

Mary Helen Immordino-Yang is the Fahmy and Donna Attallah Professor of Humanistic Psychology at the University of Southern California. And she’s the founding director of the USC Center for Affective Neuroscience, Development, Learning and Education. Candle is just a lovely image for Mary Helen’s work that brings so much light to the world.

She’s also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and has received several national awards for her ground breaking research and its implications for education

With a focus on educational psychology and the role of emotions in brain development and growth, she’s an expert on the neuroscience of learning and creativity. And her approach offers insight on how our brains shape human culture, morality, and relationships.

She works with adolescents and their teachers (particularly in low socio-economic environments) to understand how we build meaning together—looking at abstract, systems-level, and ethical implications of learning complex information, navigating social situations, and narrating our identities.

Her research underscores the active role youth play in their own brain and psychosocial development through the narratives they construct, and capacities teachers cultivate to support student belonging and deep learning.

To learn more about Mary Helen and her work, check out candle.usc.edu.

About the Thrive Center

About Dr. Pam King

Dr. Pam King is Executive Director the Thrive Center and is Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science at Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.  Follow her @drpamking.

About With & For

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

You are a beautiful masterpiece. But the practice of living artfully comes slowly, often through brokenness, weakness, or failure. Contemporary artist Makoto Fujimura integrates traditional Japanese styles with abstract expressionism and Christian theology, to explore the beauty that can emerge from the ashes pain and suffering.

Makoto Fujimura—renowned artist, writer, and theologian—joins Dr. Pam King to explore the deep connections between art, faith, and flourishing. Fujimura shares how his Japanese heritage and study of traditional Nihonga painting have shaped his understanding of creativity as a sacred act. Through themes of brokenness, beauty, and slow art, he challenges us to rethink success, embrace imperfection, and create from a place of love and abundance.

In this conversation with Mako Fujimura, we discuss:

Helpful Links and Resources

About Makoto Fujimura

Contemporary artist Makoto Fujimura is a painter, an author, a speaker, and an imaginative maker with a gift for theological integration.

A blend of fine art and abstract expressionism, Mako describes his work as “slow art,” being influenced directly by the distinctively Japanese Nihonga style, which is patient and methodical, using slow drying pigments from ground minerals.

Mako’s art has been featured in galleries and museums around the world, as well as notable collections in The Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, The Huntington Library in California, and the Tikotin Museum in Israel.

Mako is the author of several books, including Refractions: A Journey of Art, Faith, & Culture, Culture Care: Reconnecting with Beauty for Our Common Life, and Silence and Beauty: Hidden Faith Born of Suffering. His most recent is entitled Art and Faith: A Theology of Making. And his next book will be available soon—titled, Art Is: A Journey into the Light. And with his wife Haejin, he’s producing a new work on Beauty and Justice.

Follow him on X @iamfujimura, and view his beautiful work at makotofujimura.com.

About the Thrive Center

About Dr. Pam King

Dr. Pam King is Executive Director the Thrive Center and is Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science at Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.  Follow her @drpamking.

About With & For

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

On our path to spiritual health, we need to keep our eyes open to the ways religion and spirituality have been exploited to coerce, control, and create chaos. Focusing on the intersection of religion and psychology, licensed therapist, researcher, and podcaster Dan Koch is creating a public conversation about spiritual harm and abuse, helping victims learn how to deal with spiritual trauma, and offering insight and guidance toward healthy religious and spiritual experiences.

From his own personal journey of religious trauma to his extensive research on spiritual abuse, Dan shares insights on how faith communities can both wound and restore. The conversation covers the psychological impact of religious trauma, the complexities of self-diagnosis, and practical strategies for self-knowledge and healing for anyone who has wrestled with faith, struggled with past church experiences, or have lost their religion.

In this conversation with Dan Koch, we discuss:

About Dan Koch

Dan Koch is a licensed therapist supporting patients working through the trauma of spiritual abuse; and his work and insight in this domain emerges from his empirical research. He’s also host of the You Have Permission podcast. With a background in philosophy and theology, he explores questions of faith, doubt, and spiritual well-being. His research focuses on the psychological effects of religious trauma and how individuals can heal from spiritual abuse.

Find more of his work at dankochwords.com.

You can find his podcast, You Have Permission wherever you listen to podcasts and find exclusive episodes at patreon.com/dankoch.

Helpful Links and Resources

About the Thrive Center

About Dr. Pam King

Dr. Pam King is Executive Director the Thrive Center and is Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science at Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.  Follow her @drpamking.

About With & For

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.

We need a recovery of the sacred in our secular world. Because the mental, emotional, and psychological struggles haunting society right now can’t be solved without addressing meaning, purpose, and the longing for connection to something beyond ourselves.

In other words, spiritual health is an essential part of mental health.

In this conversation with Varun Soni, we discuss:

About Varun Soni

Varun Soni is the Dean of Religious Life at the University of Southern California (USC), bringing a unique and extensive academic background to his role. He holds numerous degrees, including a B.A. in Religion from Tufts University, an M.T.S. from Harvard Divinity School, and an M.A. in Religious Studies from UC Santa Barbara. He also earned a J.D. from UCLA School of Law, where he completed the Critical Race Studies Program, and a Ph.D. from the University of Cape Town, where his doctoral research focused on religion and popular culture. His global perspective was shaped by immersive experiences, including a semester at a Buddhist monastery in India and field research in South Asia through UCSB. Prior to his work at USC, he taught in the Law and Society Program at UCSB.

Beyond his academic and administrative roles, Dean Soni is an author, a producer, and an active public intellectual. He is the author of Natural Mystics: The Prophetic Lives of Bob Marley and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and has contributed writings to publications like the Washington Post and Huffington Post. His production credits include the graphic novel Tina’s Mouth: An Existential Comic Diary, which is being adapted into a film. He also hosted a radio show showcasing South Asian music and was involved in organizing the 2009 Concert for Pakistan at the United Nations. Dean Soni is currently an Adjunct Professor at the USC School of Religion and serves on the advisory boards for several interfaith and educational organizations.

About the Thrive Center

About Dr. Pam King

Dr. Pam King is Executive Director the Thrive Center and is Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science at Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.  Follow her @drpamking.

About With & For

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.