TRAINING
The Center for Integrative Psychology (CIP) is a rare integrative psychology emphasis within an APA-accredited clinical psychology program... a frontier of psychological training.
CIP offers coursework and experience in empirical modalities like CBT/DBT/ACT, and innovative approaches like psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and integrative harm reduction.
CIP hosts professional events, serving as a platform for innovative ideas and as a nexus of creative collaboration and emergent thinking across orientations, cultures, and healing traditions.
Amidst a trend of elite programs (e.g. UC Berkeley) intentionally dropping APA accreditation, CIP bridges increasingly disparate worlds of APA and non-APA accredited programs.
California School of
Professional Psychology
The Center for Integrative Psychology is housed in CSPP’s APA-Accredited clinical PsyD Program at Alliant International University in San Diego. Collaboration between CSPP and CIP intends the best of both worlds - Traditional, rigorous APA clinical training supplemented with integrative curriculum and professional experiences.
Integrative Psychology Emphasis
CSPP is a professional psychology school focused on training psychologists for careers in clinical practice. Integrative clinical training at CIP builds mastery consistent with the common progression of psychotherapists through their careers. Most psychologists who devote the heart of their careers to practicing psychotherapy gradually integrate aspects of other approaches and discover limitations to their own.
The training model utilized at The Center for Integrative Psychology is Assimilative Integration.
Assimilative Integration emphasizes mastery of one system of psychotherapy and selective integration of interventions and theories from other systems. Integrative emphasis students at CSPP naturally develop firm grounding in cognitive-behavioral (CBT, DBT, ACT) and psychodynamic theoretical orientations. In addition to core training in behavioral and psychodynamic approaches, integrative emphasis trainees learn to incorporate landmark systems such as existential, humanistic, multicultural, and transpersonal psychologies in both coursework and experiential training.
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Seasoned therapists adapt clinical practices and expand clinical repertoires, rarely discarding methods and instead reworking them, augmenting them, and seeing them from different angles under different lights. Integration of novel methods into home theories is inevitable when therapists aim to formulate the most effective approaches for each unique person and situation. CIP aims to equip and prepare future clinicians for how effective therapy is most often practiced.
CIP Facets
Integrative Electives
Integrative students choose from courses on psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, integrative psychology, integrative harm reduction for addictive problems, existential psychotherapy, theory and practice of Buddhist psychotherapy, theories of violence, and humanistic psychology.
Hands- On Training
Integrative students can choose from multiple, local practicum sites offering supervised professional training in a multitude of modalities and helping a diverse range of people.
Dissertation
It is expected that PsyD dissertations will focus on a topic related to integrative psychology.
Recent
Integrative Dissertations
Classic Psychedelics and Addiction Cessation: A Phenomenological Inquiry
Ben Kaufman, M.A.– estimated completion May 2025
Sex and Psychedelics: Lessons on Love, Intimacy, and Sexual Well-Being
Katie Schneider– estimated completion May 2025
When Insanity is Not Insane
Allie Sinclair – estimated completion May 2026
Exploring the Role of Emotional Intelligence in Successful Efforts to Change Addictive Problems
Renée Riggs, M.A. – estimated completion May 2024
A Phenomenological Investigation of the Subjective Effects of Ayahuasca on Personality
Liza Kedioglou, M.A. – estimated completion May 2024
Therapist Experiences Providing Psychedelic- Assisted Psychotherapy: A Qualitative Study
Ned DeWitt, M.A.- estimated completion May 2024
Existential Elements of Free Solo and Traditional Rock Climbing and Effects on Mental Health