CIIS Clinic Offers Therapy in 12 Languages

At the California Institute of Integral Studies, prospective psychotherapy clients can receive counseling in a dozen languages.

The Integral Counseling Center (ICC) at Church Street is now offering therapy in Arabic, Catalan, English, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Mandarin, Punjabi, Russian, Spanish, and Tagalog.

In San Francisco where, according to the U.S. Census, 45.2% of homes speak a language other than English, the expanded range of languages will likely extend the CIIS counseling centers’ reach into some of the Bay Area’s most underserved populations.

Though each of CIIS’ six ICCs regularly provides affordable therapy in the various languages spoken by the University’s psychology graduate students, Fall 2014 is the first semester that San Francisco communities can access so many options in one clinic.

“The Church Street ICC deeply resonates with the Gestalt Therapy value in differences, diversity, and multiple means of expression,” says Gieve Patel, Director of Church St. ICC at CIIS.

“Having this amazing resource of cultural and linguistic diversity is of profound value to the therapy and the therapeutic alliance,” says Patel.

Because CIIS recruits a diverse student body, the Counseling Clinics are more able to serve the dynamic communities with therapists-in-training who have at least some of the language capacities needed in multilingual San Francisco.

“It makes good clinical sense that clients receive counseling in their preferred languages whenever possible and that our student therapists in training strive to meet that need,” says Becky McGovern Director, MCP Field Placement and Clinics at CIIS.

“We see this, along with educating new therapists-to-be from additional under-represented identities and capacities, as a primary mission and vision,” McGovern adds. “It is very exciting to see some of our about-to-graduate students preparing to take their new education and skills back to serve their communities outside of school.”

CIIS has Counseling Clinics in several locations throughout San Francisco. All offer high-quality affordable care provided by advanced graduate students under the supervision of licensed clinicians.