From Surviving to Thriving

Thrive walks with you on the path to spiritual health, helping you put knowledge into practice to experience a full and vibrant life.

Discover

What is thriving?

We all long to become fully alive as ourselves. Thriving involves adapting through the thick and thin of life, attending to our individual needs and strengths, as well as our connections with others and our sources of meaning and hope in order to continually find and pursue purpose. We shed new light on the importance of spirituality for thriving. Deeply informed by psychological science, wisdom traditions, and theology, we recognize that a flourishing world requires spiritually healthy humans who can ultimately lean into love and live out love. Thriving is a practice of growing whole. The agility necessary to thrive comes from practices that ground us, connect us, and direct us.

Who We Are

The Thrive Center for Human Development is an applied research center that exists to catalyze a movement of human thriving, with and for others. We conduct and collaborate with other researchers on cutting-edge psychological questions addressing the most pressing issues of spiritual health and thriving in a pluralistic world. We are real people with real lives and persistent hopes for wholeness and a flourishing world. To this end we convert our research into resources designed to bring about change and spiritual health.

Formerly founded in 1996 as the Center for Research in Child and Adolescent Development (CRCAD), the Thrive Center was established in 2011 within the School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy at Fuller Theological Seminary. We mentor future scholars and leaders in the field of psychology and theology. While we are trained in Christian theology, our empirical research engages diverse perspectives and cultures and explores spirituality broadly inside and outside of religious traditions.

We believe all persons should and can thrive. We offer practical insight and guidance into how, in the midst of life’s opportunities and struggles, we can attend to our needs and strengths, our connections with others, and our sources of meaning and hope in order to continually find and pursue a sense of purpose. We are realistic and know this is not a simple journey, but we believe it is worth the effort. This world needs you to be the best and fullest expression of who you are, so please dive in and join us. 

Backed by research

The mind behind the method

We hold that science can provide insight needed to understand spiritual health and develop practices that lead to thriving in everyday life. We’re researchers and psychologists that live real lives and come face to face with the same questions you have.

Thrive Center Founder

Dr. Pamela Ebstyne King

Our Team

We are scholars, creatives, learners, connectors, and communicators

Support the Work

It takes a community to thrive! Every gift helps combine the science of psychology and theology to build more spiritually healthy leaders and communities.

We've been busy

See what we’re doing

From academic conferences to community events to recording podcasts, Dr. King and team are working to share our research and offer new perspectives and practices to promote spiritual health and thriving.

Join our team! Please see Fuller’s HR page for inquiries.

    You Got It!