Meridian University

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Santa Monica, CA
Meridian University

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Transformative Learning in Psychology, Business, Education, and Leadership since 1993. Graduate programs in Los Angeles and online.

Scholarships are available to students globally. Founded 30 years ago in the San Francisco Bay Area, Meridian University enrolls students globally in its unique hybrid and 100% online graduate degree, certificate, and public programs. The University offers master's and doctoral programs in Psychology, Education and Business with diverse concentrations available within each of these programs. Meridian’s integrated, innovative curriculum is designed to be experiential and transformative. Meridian graduates are engaged in varied professional contexts that include coaching, psychotherapy, organizational development, facilitation, social healing, social entrepreneurship, and transformative leadership. Meridian’s graduate programs are available in two formats, hybrid and 100% online. This model supports students who are working professionals and balancing other life commitments to move forward towards their personal and professional future.

10/29/2026

“There’s a way that transformative learning opens up a certain spaciousness in an individual.”

Dr. Virginia Crossleysmith, a Meridian psychology faculty member, describes transformative learning.

For Virginia, that spaciousness includes the possibility of being changed by the process alongside her students. As she witnesses students’ experiences, she sees transformative learning take shape differently for each person. The process is not always comfortable or easy, but it can open space for exponential growth, deeper awareness, and the possibility of being more fully human.

At Meridian, students bring their whole selves into learning. In transformative communities of practice, their experiences and perspectives contribute to a shared process of inquiry and growth.

Explore Meridian’s graduate degree programs → https://bit.ly/4klCzku

10/08/2026

"The transformative learning has really invited the whole of me into the space. And in the midst of everything going on in the world, it's just a really lovely harbor to land in."

That is how Dale Y., an MA in Psychology student, describes learning at Meridian University.

For Dale, the work began with the part of the self that feels overwhelmed by the world and unsure how to process it. The program invited curiosity about where resistance lives and why certain paths feel right at this point in his life. Dale says the greatest gift has been the freedom to be fully himself.

At Meridian, students bring their own experience into the learning process. They explore it together in transformative communities of practice, and the insight each person offers deepens the learning for everyone.

Explore Meridian's graduate programs → https://bit.ly/47aSPNt

10/01/2026

On Saturday and Sunday, September 26 and 27, Meridian University hosted an on-site Transformative Learning Lab at its Los Angeles Campus for ANC 105 Emotional Development, a hybrid graduate course. Faculty and students spent the weekend exploring the nature of emotion and its role in human development, and how capacities such as courage, compassion, and resilience grow through that work.

09/24/2026

"When you are a seeker in life, I think that this is the place to be. This is the place to really do that deep, deep work."

This is how Ashley M., a PhD in Psychology student, describes Meridian University. The curriculum is built around practice. Students work through material in real time, in sessions, group dialogues, and live classes, developing confidence in their own thought process along the way.

With practice, knowledge becomes embodied, something students take with them into their professions and communities.

Meridian offers graduate programs in Psychology, Education, and Business, available in Online and Hybrid formats.

Explore Meridian's graduate programs → https://bit.ly/4h11FmU

09/18/2026

Graduate education can be a process of discovery, of oneself and of the people one serves. For Jason B., a student in Meridian University's MA in Counseling Psychology program, this discovery has become central to the experience.

At Meridian's Graduate School of Psychology, students engage with the curriculum through reflection, dialogue, and experiential practice. The learning develops self-awareness alongside clinical knowledge, preparing practitioners who can meet their clients and communities with depth.

The Graduate School of Psychology offers master's and doctoral programs across clinical and counseling pathways.

Learn more about Meridian's psychology programs → https://bit.ly/4h1vzaD

09/17/2026

"As a result of the transformative learning process, I feel like I'm very attuned and aware of myself. And that's allowed me to be aware of how I am in the environment around me."

This is how Jessa P., a student in Meridian University's PsyD in Clinical Psychology program, describes her experience. Transformative learning carries a certain tension, and growth happens as you work through it.

Self-awareness of this kind develops through practice, in community. At Meridian, students learn alongside peers and faculty who shape the process as much as the material does.

Meridian offers graduate programs in Psychology, Education, and Business, available in Online and Hybrid formats.

Explore Meridian's graduate programs → https://bit.ly/4h11FmU

09/10/2026

"There's a lot of encouragement of imagination and encouragement of experience, while also rooting us in some solid foundation."

This is how Carter S., a PhD in Psychology student, describes learning at Meridian University. The pedagogy asks for engagement, and what develops carries directly into client work, program design, and professional practice.

The same orientation shapes Meridian's upcoming online course, 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝗘𝗺𝗯𝗼𝗱𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁: 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗦𝗼𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗣𝘀𝘆𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆, exploring the history, theory, and established modalities of the field.

Six live sessions with faculty Brian Tierney, PhD, Aftab Omer, PhD, and Melissa Schwartz, PhD. Starts September 15, 2026.

Learn more and register → https://bit.ly/3SSWUCz

09/10/2026

What happens in the body in the aftermath of overwhelm?

Somatic Psychology examines trauma through the nervous system, including arousal, regulation, dissociation, defensive responses, and co-regulation.

In Meridian University's upcoming online course, The Mystery of Embodiment: Perspectives on Somatic Psychology, participants explore topics including the window of tolerance, polyvagal foundations of safety, titration and pendulation, the defense cascade, and the completion of defensive responses.

Participants also experience a range of modalities in action and develop clinical and psychoeducational somatic skills applicable in psychotherapy, coaching, education, and organizational settings.

Six live sessions with faculty Brian Tierney, PhD, Aftab Omer, PhD, and Melissa Schwartz, PhD. Starts September 15, 2026.

Learn more and register → https://bit.ly/4A6Lw6E

09/09/2026

"When it comes to transformative learning, what I really notice is kind of exactly how they say it: it's just landing in my body. I don't have this stress or urgency to memorize facts. Because it's landing in such a way, it stays with me and translates to my outside-of-school experience, too."

— Heather B., PhD in Psychology

The relationship between embodiment and experience is at the center of Meridian University's upcoming online course, 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝗘𝗺𝗯𝗼𝗱𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁: 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗦𝗼𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗣𝘀𝘆𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆.

The course offers a historical and theoretical overview of the field, introducing the principles, concepts, and methods underlying its established modalities. Participants experience a range of modalities in action and practice the frameworks through which practitioners read movement, posture, contact, and the felt sense.

Six live sessions with faculty Brian Tierney, PhD, Aftab Omer, PhD, and Melissa Schwartz, PhD. Starts September 15, 2026.

Learn more and register → https://bit.ly/4cvngkI

09/08/2026

Somatic Psychology emerged in part by challenging a longstanding separation between psychological life and the body.

From attention to character and armoring through the formative, bioenergetic, focusing-oriented, developmental, and sensorimotor lineages that followed, Somatic Psychology has accumulated a substantial body of theory, research, and clinical craft.

At the center of the field is the recognition that the body is not where psychological life simply registers after the fact, but the ground on which experience is organized.

Meridian University's upcoming online course, 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝗘𝗺𝗯𝗼𝗱𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁: 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗻 𝗦𝗼𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗣𝘀𝘆𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆, traces this history and introduces the principles and methods underlying the field's established modalities.

Six live sessions with faculty Brian Tierney, PhD, Aftab Omer, PhD, and Melissa Schwartz, PhD. Starts September 15, 2026.

Learn more and register → https://bit.ly/4gZRU79

Address

2450 Colorado Avenue Suite 100E
Santa Monica, CA
90404

Telephone

+17077651836

Website

http://www.meridianuniversity.edu/

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