Professor of Clinical Psychology

Year Joined RCNJ: 2002

Contact Information

• Phone: (201) 684-7852 (best to use e-mail)
• Email: jmorley@ramapo.edu
• Office: G-201A
• Office Hours: Usually 11:30-1:30, Tues, Fri

Education:

• A., Ramapo College of New Jersey
• A., Duquesne University
• D. Duquesne University

Convening Group:

• Psychology (primary)
• Philosophy (secondary)

General Background:  I did my graduate training in Pittsburgh at Duquesne University in the 1980’s and held teaching positions in Connecticut, and overseas in India, and England before returning to the States in 2002. I am a native of Allendale, Bergen County, New Jersey and a proud alumnus of Ramapo College (1979).

Service to the College: I have served as a member of the Faculty Assembly Executive Council, faculty Vice President (2007-2008) and Faculty Assembly President (2009-2011). I was co-founder of Ramapo’s India Study Abroad Program (2003-2010), founding director of Ramapo’s Mindfulness Center (2014-2017) and Faculty Liaison for the construction of the Padovano Faculty Commons (2011-2019).

External activities and research engagements:  Since 2014 I have served as the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, am the recent past president of the Interdisciplinary Coalition of North American Phenomenologists (ICNAP) and I serve on various editorial review boards. I specialize in the philosophical psychology of the French philosopher  Maurice Merleau-Ponty and other continental thinkers but also have broad interdisciplinary and eclectic interests. My research publications apply continental thought to qualitative research methodology and more specifically to topics such as: trauma (personal and collective), social theory, imagination, and Asian thought.  My edited books and various publications can be found in these links:  Academia.edu:  https://ramapo.academia.edu/MorleyJames

ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/James-Morley

The Journal of Phenomenological Psychology: https://brill.com/view/journals/jpp/jpp-overview.xml

Teaching Activities:   I teach Abnormal Psychology every semester and cyclically teach the following:  History of Social Thought, Psychology of Yoga, Developmental Psychology, Adult (geriatric) fieldwork, Existentialism, and a senior capstone course in Phenomenological Psychology. Outside of Ramapo, I also teach graduate seminars in phenomenological research methodology to doctoral students in various research institutions and occasionally serve on doctoral dissertation committees in the States and overseas. 

Recent Publications: 

Contributions to books:

 2018   (Co-authored with Amedeo Giorgi) The descriptive phenomenological method in psychology,    The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research, NY: Sage Press. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318451180_The_Descriptive_Phenomenological_Psychological_Method

2011    “Phenomenological psychology” in S. Luft and S. Overgaard. The Routledge companion to phenomenology. NY: Routledge Press

2010    “It’s always about the epoche’: on phenomenological methodology.” The redirection of Psychology: essays in honor of Amedeo Giorgi. Montreal: University of Quebec Press.

“Embodied consciousness in Tantric Yoga and the Phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty.” Reprinted in R. Kearney & E. Rizo-Patron (eds.) Traversing the heart: Journeys of the inter-religious imagination.  Leiden: Brill.

Articles in journals:

2022      (co-authored with Scott Churchill and Christopher Aanstoos) “The emergence of phenomenological psychology in the United States.” Journal of Phenomenological Psychology. Vol. 52.2

2021     “Bitbol’s Radical Renewal of the Neurophenomenology Project” Constructivist Foundations. Vol 16, 2, 151-153.   https://constructivist.info/16/2

2021        (co-authored with Magnus Englander) “Phenomenological Psychology and Qualitative Research” Phenomenology and Cognitive Science.  https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11097-021-09781-8

2019     “Commentary on Applied Phenomenology.” International Journal of Nursing Studies 93,163–167

Book reviews:

2018          Kearney, Richard and Treanor Brian (2015), Carnal Hermeneutics. New York: Fordham University Press.  For The Humanistic Psychologist. Vol. 46.  No 3.  287-293.

2011          Wertz, F.J., Charmaz, K., McMullen, L., Josselson, R., Anderson, R., McSpadden, E. (2011). Five ways of doing qualitative analysis: Phenomenological psychology, grounded theory, discourse analysis, narrative research, and intuitive inquiry. New York: Guilford Press.  For the Journal of Phenomenological Psychology. vol. 42 (2).

Recent Speaking Invitations:   

Invited speaker, Merleau-Ponty and pathologies of the imagination. Phenomenology Graduate Workshop, Faculty of Letters, Kobe University, Japan.

https://twitter.com/kazashinobuo/status/1607202410493284354

Keynote Speaker,  Phenomenology, mindfulness and the crisis of our times.   International Conference on Innovative Philosophy and Law.  Ho Chi Min City, Vietnam. December 2023.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41976-fAa2A       also:

https://www.ueh.edu.vn/en/news/international-conference-on-innovative-philosophy-and-law-ipl-2022-59618

Speaker   Teaching and learning phenomenology across the disciplines. for the international blog series on Phenomenology and psychiatry PHENOLAB. Heidelberg, Germany. December 2022.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh4_ieIDYO0&t=660s

Instructor for 3-day graduate seminar on Phenomenological psychological qualitative methodology, Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. June 2022

Keynote speaker. Lucidity: meditation and the phenomenology of daydreaming” Conference on Phenomenology and Mindfulness.  University of Cyprus, Republic of Cyprus. May 2-4, 2022.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCLc22SdXIo&t=602s

Panelist: Ecological hospitality panel discussion. Symposium on Phenomenology and the voice of the Earth. Guestbook Project.   Boston College Department of Philosophy, April 2022.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dfw_HuSmeL8

On Phenomenological Psychology, Philosophie Psychologie Podcast Digitales Kolloquium, Heidelberg, Germany. August 14, 2021.   https://www.phi-psy.de/digitales-kolloquium-mit-james-morley/

Keynote: The idea of phenomenological Psychology: history and prospectus. First Person Science of Consciousness. Witten Herdecke University, Germany May 6-7, 2021.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZeU6wufZFc

Three-day PhD course on Descriptive Phenomenological Methodology, University of Copenhagen, Department of Psychology, October, 2019

Mind and Life Europe annual conference, Munich, Germany.  Conducted three presentations: Philosophy and methodology panelist, Knowledge as resonance panelist, Buddhism, psychoanalysis and phenomenology as 1st person research methodologies panelist.  October 2019.

Public discussion on the role of the methodological epoche’ in phenomenological psychology, with Dan Zahavi, the Center for Subjectivity Research, University of Copenhagen. April 2019.

Three-day graduate symposium on first person methodologies, Presentation on descriptive phenomenological methodology, University of Aarhus, Denmark. April 2019.

Lecture presentation on the Descriptive Phenomenological Psychological Method, British Psychological Society, London England. April 2019.

Instructor, 5-day contemplative phenomenology research retreat – hosted by Mind and Life Europe.  Nemours, France.  May 2019.

Public Interviews:

 Interview: “Phenomenology and Meditation.” Hosted by Hilary Murray’s Stepping Stones radio program on WDRV Radio. July 2017.  https://www.academia.edu/video/1M37Qk

Interview: “Phenomenology as Pedagogy: Enlivening Classrooms and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.”  National Learning and Teaching Forum February 2014 edition. https://www.academia.edu/6689357/Phenomenology_as_Pegagogy_National_Teaching_and_Learning_Forum