About the Integral Counseling Psychology MA

Integral and transpersonal psychologies are frameworks in which Western schools of psychology are synthesized with the world's spiritual traditions.

Our Approach

While behavioral, analytic, systemic, and humanistic-existential schools of psychology offer important visions of the psyche, they have largely ignored the spiritual dimension. An integral approach holds that psychological training must be inclusive of the spiritual to be complete.

A major emphasis of the Integral Counseling Psychology (ICP) program is on the two major streams of depth psychology: contemporary psychoanalytic and humanistic-existential.

We want students to become sophisticated in working with transference and countertransference dynamics in a relational approach to the psyche while also being astute to existential and somatic approaches incorporating the wisdom of the body.

Behavioral and family systems orientations are also taught in the ICP program. Because our education is so thorough, we consistently have one of the highest pass rates of all graduate degree programs in California for the Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT) exam.

This program is experiential, transformational, culturally sensitive, and centered on the inner work necessary for becoming a healer. We create a learning community that is both deeply supportive and profoundly challenging.

From the first class in Therapeutic Communication through the final Integrative Seminar, threads of spiritual integration, rigorous self-reflection and self-realization, and understanding and practicing the craft of psychotherapy are woven together by each student.

Rigorous and Challenging

Some students will be more stretched by the academic demands; others will be more challenged by the culture of ICP, which asks us to look inside ourselves and bring awareness to those parts that may limit our ability to freely connect with our clients; still others may find it is the clinical training that confronts their personal edges most directly.

The fundamental assumption behind ICP's integral education is that it is only in deeply engaging our own psychological healing that we are able to help our clients deeply engage in their own healing.

This is not a "neck up" education. Integral education is demanding on every level: body, heart, mind, spirit. It is also, we believe, profoundly rewarding.

Weekend Option

The ICP program at CIIS also offers a full-time weekend schedule designed for working adults. The curriculum of this program (ICPW) mirrors that of the regular ICP program and takes 2½ years to complete.

The ICPW program schedule consists of a weeklong retreat in August and 10 weekend sessions September through May for 2½ years, ending after the third Fall semester.

Weekend sessions are Friday through Sunday. The ICPW program is based on a cohort model, which means that students beginning the program together take all classes and complete their coursework as a single group, or cohort.

Cohorts range in size from 18 to 22 students, and two cohorts begin the program every fall semester. Each cohort becomes a network of support for its members both during the course of study and afterward as graduates transition into their counseling careers.

Download Weekend Option Dates for 2010-2011>>