James Dillon, Ph.D.

Professor of Psychology
School of Social Sciences College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences

678-839-0607
jdillon@westga.eFsd0edu

Melson Hall - Room 116
Office Hours
By appointment

Download curriculum vitae for James Dillon, Ph.D. in PDF
James Dillon, Ph.D.
Biography

Jim received his B.A. in Psychology from the College of the Holy Cross, his M.A. and Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Clark University. He is also a certified public elementary school teacher in Georgia. His educational background is in Philosophy, Cognitive Development, Education, Decision-Making, and Guidance Counseling. He does research on self-realization, human growth, parenting, spiritual discernment, and decision-making. He has conducted hundreds of interviews with children, adults, counselors, and teachers on what helps people to learn and grow. He has written several books on human flourishing including Partnerships in Research, Clinical, and Educational Settings (Praeger Press, 2000); Teaching Psychology and the Socratic Method (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2016); Inside Today’s Elementary Schools (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2019), the forthcoming Joy of Duty: Ethical Obligation and Human Happiness (Ethics International), as well as many professional research articles in journals such as Encounter: Education for Meaning and Social Justice; Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology; Journal of Humanistic Counseling Education and Development; The Journal of Humanistic Psychology; and The Humanistic Psychologist.

Courses Taught
Course Sections and Syllabi

Spring 2025 Sections

Fall 2024 Sections

Summer 2024 Sections

Spring 2024 Sections

Fall 2023 Sections

Summer 2023 Sections

Spring 2023 Sections

Fall 2022 Sections

Summer 2022 Sections

Spring 2022 Sections

Fall 2021 Sections

Summer 2021 Sections

Spring 2021 Sections

Fall 2020 Sections

Publication List

Dillon, J. (in press). Complex and archetype: Exploring the forces which animate our lives. Palgrave-Macmillan.

Dillon, J. (2024). Wild critical analysis. Academic Questions, 37(4), 56-60. [View Publication External Resource]

Swogger, B., & Dillon, J. (2022). Historical foundations of affectivity and learning research: C.G. Jung’s word-association experiments. In P. Fossa & C. Cortés-Rivera (Eds.), Affectivity and learning: Bridging the gap between neurosciences, cultural an

Dillon, J. (2022). The joy of duty: Human happiness and ethical obligation. Ethics International.

Dillon, J. (2021). Occluding the obligational realm: How psychology misconstrues happiness. The Catholic Social Science Review, 26, 235-245.

Dillon, J. (2021). Reassembling the real person: A Jungian and mythical-dramatistic approach to human development. The Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 61(5), 786-805. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022167819853072

Dillon, J. (2020). Humanistic psychology and the good: A forgotten link. The Humanistic Psychologist, 48(3), 244-256.

Dillon, J. (2019). Inside today's elementary schools: A psychologist's perspective. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan.

Dillon, J. (2018). A letter to a new faculty member: How to stay sane in the academy. TheHumanistic Psychologist, 46(2), 147-158.

Dillon, J. (2016). Teaching psychology and the Socratic Method: Real knowledge in a virtualage. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. [View Publication External Resource]

Dillon, J. (2013). Using Socrates to teach psychology: A humanistic approach to Psychology101. The Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 53(3), 362-385.

Dillon, J. (2011). Psychology and spiritual life writing. The Humanistic Psychologist, 39(2):137-153.

Dillon, J. (2010). Primal vision: The psychological effects of creation myth. The Journal ofHumanistic Psychology, 50(4), 495-513.

Dillon, J. (2009). Benjamin Franklin's wonder-based approach to learning and education:Lessons for today. Encounter: Education for Meaning and Social Justice. [View Publication (PDF)]

Dillon, J. (2008). Reclaiming humanistic psychology from modernity: Problems and solutions. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 48(2), 221-242.

Dillon, J., Sagarin, J., & Bibace, R. (2008). Change in reasoning about the bodyThrough psychological distancing activities. Journal of AppliedDevelopmental Psychology, 29(4), 254-258.

Dillon, J. (2006). Irving Babbitt's New Humanism and Its Potential Value to Humanistic Psychology. The Humanistic Psychologist, 34(1), 59-73.

Dillon, J. (2006). The tears of Priam: Reflections on Troy and teaching of ancienttexts. Humanitas, 19(1&2): 126-131. [View Publication (PDF)]

Dillon, J. (2003). Bringing counseling to the classroom and the residence hall: The university learning community. Journal of Humanistic Counseling Education and Development, 42, 194-208.

Dillon, J. (2002). The role of the child in adult development. The Journal of Adult Development, 9(4), 267-275.

Other Information

Influential Works

Beyond the Pleasure Principle (Sigmund Freud); Book of Psalms (King David); Jesus: A New Vision (Marcus Borg); Magister Ludi (Hermann Hesse); The Doors of Perception (Aldous Huxley); The Culture of Narcissism (Christopher Lasch); The Earthsea Trilogy (Ursula K. LeGuin); Toward a Psychology of Being (Abraham H. Maslow); The Equilibration of Cognitive Structures (Jean Piaget); Oration on the Dignity of Man (Pico della Mirandola); Lost in the Cosmos (Walker Percy); Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle); Republic (Plato); The Denial of Death (Ernest Becker); I and Thou (Martin Buber); An Essay on Man (Ernst Cassirer); The Interpretation of Dreams (Sigmund Freud); The Way of a Pilgrim (Anonymous); Timaeus (Plato); Symbol Formation (Heinz Werner & Bernard Kaplan)