Jenny H. Pak
Associate Professor of Psychology, Clinical Psychology Department
BA, University of California, Los Angeles
MA, Fuller Theological Seminary
PhD, University of Southern California
Courses Taught
PC808 Clinical Interventions: Culture and Community Psychology
PC809 Clinical Interventions: Humanistic
PF826 Research Methods 1: Practice-Based Approaches
PG827 Research Methods 2: Qualitative Approaches
PI831 Cultural and Spiritual Narrative in Psychotherapy
Campus Affiliations
Areas of Expertise
Narrative analysis, globalization, cultural transitions, parent-child relationship, identity, vocational and spiritual development, posttraumatic growth, grief, loss, pastoral and missionary care
“Over the years, God has helped me see that the conflicted, divided self is not unique to bicultural individuals, but a shared human condition needing to be reconciled and in union with him in order for us to recover from our brokenness and become whole.”
Dr. Pak, in an interview upon her initiation into the faculty.
Bio
Jenny Pak, associate professor of psychology, came to Fuller’s School of Psychology in September 2014 from Biola University. She studied psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles, received training in marriage and family therapy from Fuller Theological Seminary, and graduated from the University of Southern California with a doctoral degree in counseling psychology.
While at Biola, Dr. Pak received the Provost’s Award for Excellence in Mentoring Students, and she has supervised many doctoral students’ research projects. Underpinning her broad research interests is a commitment to bridging the gap between science and practice and incorporating meaning and intentionality in psychological inquiry.
Through her practice with bicultural individuals struggling with identity and inner conflict, Pak became interested in narrative analysis, which uses life stories to study how a person’s identity and sense of meaning are constructed out of relational and cultural context. This led to conducting in-depth qualitative research to examine the complexity of cultural adaptation and the split between acculturation at the behavioral and values levels. As she travelled to Thailand, Turkey, and South Korea to teach and provide counseling, her efforts have increasingly involved examining the impact of globalization on the individual’s life, cultural identity, and spiritual formation. As rapid modernization often collides with traditional cultural values and people adapt complex strategies and responses, conversion to another faith is often part of much larger transformations on the individual as well as communal levels.
Pak comes with many years of professional consultation and counseling experience within the church and in community mental health. She codirected the Early Childhood Program at the Child Guidance Center as well as worked with diverse court-ordered, at-risk youths and families from inner-city Los Angeles. Her clinical interests include in-depth integration of meaning and emotion in psychotherapy, identity development, and posttraumatic growth. She is a licensed psychologist and the author of Korean American Women: Stories of Acculturation and Changing Selves.
Download Dr. Pak’s CV, which includes a list of her current publications, here.
Featured Publications
