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 four specializations in its MA Counseling Psychology program.

Transpersonal Psychology (Pleasant Hill campus only): 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): 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): Integrates the transpersonal and somatic psychologies into one innovative program. Somatic psychology courses investigate how emotions, attitudes and beliefs become "embodied"in one's physical structure. Students learn to utilize movement and body-centered techniques to release emotional and energetic blocks and to cultivate body-mind-spirit integration. Courses in transpersonal psychology explore the role of consciousness, meditation, spirituality and imagery techniques in fostering psychological and spiritual well-being.

Integral Psychotherapy (Pleasant Hill campus only): Incorporates the All Quadrant, All Level (AQAL) model to bring a multi-perspective and systematic view of psychology recognizing the importance of the four quadrants of mind, body, culture and social aspects of the human experience.

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. Click here for information on dates and times and to RSVP.

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