TRAINING
CIP offers 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, & Psychodynamic, along with innovative approaches like psychedelic treatment and harm reduction.
CIP hosts professional events, serving as a platform for innovative ideas and 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 the APA-accredited Clinical PsyD Program at the California School of Professional Psychology (CSPP), located at Alliant International University in San Diego.This collaboration between CSPP and CIP aims to provide the best of both worlds: a solid foundation of traditional, rigorous APA clinical training, enhanced by a forward-thinking integrative curriculum and enriched 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 CIP 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, transpersonal, and psychedelic treatment in both coursework and experiential training.
​
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.
Facets of CIP
Integrative Electives
To complement the intensive training in evidence-based treatments like CBT/DBT/ACT and psychodynamic, Integrative students choose from additional courses on psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, integrative psychology, integrative harm reduction for addictive problems, existential psychotherapy, Buddhist psychotherapy, humanistic psychology, and more
Hands- On Training
Integrative students can choose from multiple, local practicum sites offering supervised professional training helping a diverse range of people in a multitude of modalities that include cutting-edge approaches like psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and integrative harm reduction
Dissertation
Students investigate wide ranges of topics for dissertations in the integrative emphasis. CIP emphasizes creativity and innovation in research that tests the boundaries of reality, pushes the envelope, and continuously deepens understanding
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
Ibogaine Treatment for Operator Syndrome
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 September 2024
A Phenomenological Investigation of the Subjective Effects of Ayahuasca on Personality