Diane Dreher is Professor of English at Santa Clara University

Diane Dreher, Ph.D.
Diane Dreher is Professor of English at Santa Clara University. She earned her doctorate from UCLA, writing a dissertation on spiritual development in the Renaissance. She is the author of The Tao of Inner Peace (HarperCollins, 1991;Penguin/Putnam, 2000); The Tao of Personal Leadership (HarperCollins, 1996); The Tao of Womanhood (William Morrow, 1998); and Inner Gardening (William Morrow, 2001) as well as Domination and Defiance: Fathers and Daughters in Shakespeare (University Press of Kentucky, 1986), The Fourfold Pilgrimage (University Press of America, 1982), and journal articles on psychology and spirituality in Renaissance literature. Diane has credentials in spiritual counseling and holistic health, has taught yoga and meditation, and offers workshops on balance and personal growth to business and community groups throughout North America. At Santa Clara, where she serves as Associate Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences, she teaches undergraduate courses in Renaissance literature and creative writing as well as a course on “Vocation: The Renaissance Within” for midlife adults in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. Her current research relates Renaissance concepts of vocation to contemporary research in developmental and positive psychology.

Doctor Dreher on her current interests:

My recent research has focused on the sense of vocation or calling, examining how people find joy and meaning in their life’s work. I have studied the lives of many Renaissance men and women, asking how they discovered their vocations and what we can learn from them today. My current empirical study combines insights from positive psychology with eight common Renaissance practices to develop a new measure of vocation identity that includes the vital dimensions of spirituality and positive psychology, transcending more narrow definitions of jobs or careers. In the past, my scholarly work has involved a study of spiritual development in the Renaissance, three books on Taoism, a book on Renaissance gardening and spiritual practice, and numerous studies of Renaissance literature, psychology, and spirituality. I am especially interested in opportunities for further empirical research that relates discernment of vocation to Ignatian spiritual practice, meditation, spiritual modeling, positive psychology, and optimal health throughout the many seasons of our lives.

Spirituality and Health Institute


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