Dr. Anees Sheikh

Professor of Psychology

Winner of the John P. Raynor, S.J., Faculty Award for Teaching Excellence

Imagine biting into a lemon and your mouth will probably water. Imagine helping other people and you’ll begin to feel more content. Anees Sheikh’s investigations into the power of imagination have taught him that compassion, kindness and forgiveness are key to finding true happiness and better emotional and physical health. One of the world’s foremost experts on mental imagery, editor of 14 books and author of dozens of scholarly publications (including 30 co-authored with students), and founding editor of The Journal of Mental Imagery, Sheikh brings the same values to teaching. It leaves a lasting imprint on students.

“I believe that to be a good teacher and to enjoy teaching, you have to be kind to students and make them feel that within each of them a treasure already exists. It is my job to kindly and gently help them bring it out. Of course, I end up giving them a lot of information, too, about research and new approaches in psychology. That’s part of teaching, but that by itself is not enough. I tell them several times in the semester that if they leave my class a little kinder, a little gentler and a little more loving, then I have done my job. I am not charismatic. I don’t practice theatrics; I have a gentle way of teaching students. The way I treat them, they remember. I believe what Kahlil Gibran wrote: ‘No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge. The teacher … if he is indeed wise, he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.’”