Jason Nieuwsma ’03

Psychology

Biography

As for many, the end of my collegiate experience was marked by a series of major and rapid transitions. In 2003, I moved out of a yurt I was living in with two prior Sammy Morris roommates (Ethan VanDrunen and Andrew McRae, both ‘03), married my college sweetheart (Shenandoah DeRegibus, ‘02), graduated from Taylor with a psychology major, and moved to Wyoming to pursue a PhD in psychology. At the University of Wyoming, I investigated how sociocultural contexts and formations influence individuals’ experiences of mental health problems, an interest that has defined my career to date and that began at Taylor. Once I finished my graduate coursework, I followed my wife to earn her PhD from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, where we have lived since 2007. I was able to complete my clinical internship year and then postdoctoral work at the Durham VA and Duke Medical Center in North Carolina, during which time I met Dr. Keith Meador and had the opportunity in 2009 to begin leading with him a national program aimed at more effectively integrating mental health and spiritual care services across the entire Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare system – work I am still doing today. I am trained and licensed as a clinical psychologist, but I function largely in the capacities of a researcher, educator, program leader, and implementation scientist (i.e., helping healthcare facilities implement and evaluate new and innovative clinical practices). The VA is the nation’s largest integrated healthcare system, and as such I have the privilege of working with care providers, researchers, leaders, and policy makers all over the country. Much of my work in the VA since 2009 has involved developing and providing intensive training in evidence-based psychosocial practices for chaplains in healthcare and military contexts, leading projects that seek to better integrate mental health and chaplaincy services in these different contexts, and conducting research projects on topics at the intersections of psychological and spiritual experience. In addition to my VA role, I hold faculty appointments at Duke University Medical School and at Vanderbilt Divinity School, where at both institutions I am often involved in work complementary to my interests in the VA. This includes academic work typical of a research university – writing articles for peer-reviewed journals, leading and participating in grant-funded projects, and serving as an author and editor for books and journals – as well as teaching. In recent years, my colleagues and I transformed our intensive mental health subspecialty training for chaplains into a new Doctor of Ministry (DMin) in Integrative Chaplaincy offered through Vanderbilt Divinity School. While I have learned a great deal since my time at Taylor and have been influenced by numerous other colleagues and mentors, the foundation that was laid for me during those four years in Upland is what I have built upon for much of my professional (and personal) life.

What were some of your most valuable experiences at Taylor?

The community and friendships I experienced at Taylor were transformative. When I’ve reflected on how being at a small, rural, Christian liberal arts college compares to more typical college experiences, I’m often struck by the creative and often wacky ways we found to have fun. I think many of those experiences formed me in ways I still don’t fully appreciate but have certainly contributed to how I am in my personal and professional relationships to this day. Personal highlights for me included: being in a small group all four years with Jay Kesler; participating in various high jinks while living on the Brotherhood; studying abroad for a semester as part of the first Irish Studies group; living in a yurt my senior year on Coach Davenport’s property; and seeing my spouse-to-be for the first time during a freshman orientation mixer with our sister floor.

How did your classes or interactions with professors at Taylor impact your growth?

My psychology professors at Taylor were exceptional. I knew and was known by each one of them in meaningful ways, which I think is increasingly atypical in contemporary higher education. I was influenced in lasting ways by so many of them. I am still very much exploring intersections between psychology and spirituality, and my first taste of conducting psychological research has carried me a long way.

How can Taylor graduates use their unique Taylor education and its liberal arts foundational core as an asset in your discipline?

When I first entered graduate school, I was self-conscious of how other classmates had more experience in the labs of professors at large research universities. I quickly came to realize, though, that Taylor had fostered my ability to think critically about psychological topics to a much greater degree than other institutions would have. At Taylor, I not only received individual attention in and out of the classroom from my professors, but we thought about topics in psychology through various lenses – often by examining them through different worldviews. This ability to try on different perspectives, as opposed to learning the correct or prevailing way of approaching a topic, proved to be a major asset for me throughout my graduate school career and into my professional life. As a psychologist, it is my view that individuals tend not to experience mental health struggles as discrete, categorically separate problems from the rest of their life experiences – be those social, physical, vocational, spiritual, and so on. Rather, these experiences are all intertwined. Taylor’s liberal arts foundation is an asset to understanding human psychology via a broader consideration of things like art, literature, science, and religion – many of the things at the heart of what it is to be human.

What advice or encouragement could you provide for Taylor students in your vocational discipline?

Psychology is a popular major at many universities. Some students will go on for more schooling to make direct application of this major, perhaps as a psychologist or other mental health professional. Many are likely to use this education in other ways. In either case, I’ll offer three pieces of advice. First, remain open to opportunities. Although Taylor prepared me well for the work I am doing now, I never envisioned it from the outset. Second, apply what you learn in psychology to how you live your life and function in relationships. This may be obvious if you end up doing clinical or therapeutic work, but even as a psychologist, I find that I make the most extensive use of psychological principles outside of clinical settings. Finally, be a servant-leader. I confess that I had something of an aversion to this phrase and what I perceived to be its overuse when I was in college, but keeping your eye on serving others instead of serving yourself is going to do both you and other people a whole lot of good.