MA Counseling Program - School of Holistic Studies

CP Group

The School for Holistic Studies offers an innovative master's degree in counseling psychology that meets the educational requirements for the California Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT) license. This unique counseling program features specializations in Somatic Psychology, Transpersonal Psychology and Holistic Studies. This degree program is designed for students interested in working psychotherapeutically with individuals, couples, families and groups.

The counseling psychology curriculum provides solid academic training in counseling skills, while also strongly emphasizing self-exploration, personal growth, and the integration of body, mind and spirit. Along with the coursework in each of the specializations, the curriculum includes coursework in the areas of:

Marriage and family counseling
Child therapy
Cross-cultural issues
Addiction studies
Individual development
Diagnosis and assessment
Group process
Effective communication

Students work with professionals in the field who stress academic excellence while providing them with the means to pursue their own process of intellectual, somatic, emotional, psychological and spiritual integration.

The program requires students to be in psychotherapy for at least 12 months, preferably with a transpersonally or somatically oriented therapist. Students are also asked to develop a daily consciousness discipline, such as meditation, yoga or other method that develops the ability to center attention, quiet the mind and experience the mind-body-spirit connection.

The School of Holistic Studies offers the following three specializations in its MA Counseling Psychology program.

Transpersonal Psychology (Pleasant Hill campus only): Transpersonal psychology seeks to understand and address the integration of the whole person - body, mind, emotion and spirit. In doing so, the field draws on the world's spiritual traditions, mythology, consciousness studies and traditional psychological theory.

Somatic Psychology (Pleasant Hill campus only): Somatic Psychology is based on the principle that the body-mind is truly one process and that the practice of psychotherapy involves the whole person. Somatic Psychology looks at the interactions and intersections of mind-body functioning with a value on integration and the healing of splits, fragmentation and isolations within the human whole.

Holistic Studies (Campbell campus only): Holistic Studies integrates the somatic and transpersonal psychology perspectives into one innovative program.

Field Placement

After completing their coursework, students undertake a year-long field placement at the school's Center for Holistic Counseling, the University's Sunnyvale Counseling Center, or at an approved external site in the Bay Area. Students at the counseling centers receive extensive training in clinical skills, while working with individuals, children, couples, families and groups under the supervision of experienced, licensed therapists. They have ample opportunity to share their clinical experiences with other trainees and to receive professional feedback from skilled practitioners.

Join us for an information meeting:

Dialogs with the Department Chair
1st and 3rd Mondays of each month: 7:00 - 8:30 pm
Campbell Campus, 1 West Campbell Ave., Bldg A, Campbell
To RSVP: contact Bridget Goin at (408)874-7760 or email programdirector@jfku.edu

For further information: contact Caroline Lovell:
Phone: 925.969.3429
Email: clovell@jfku.edu