A Larger Vision of Healing

A Ph.D. for practitioners expanding the meaning, practice, and possibilities of healing

The Integrative Therapy and Healing Practices Ph.D. program is guided by the view that healing involves the whole person, including body, mind, soul, relationships, and community, and takes place within the larger systems of nature, culture, and spirit

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Ph.D. in Integrative Therapy and Healing Practices

Integrative Therapy and Healing Practices

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Healing is multidimensional and holistic

State Authorization: Click to View States Pacifica is Authorized to Enroll By Program.

The Integrative Therapy and Healing Practices Ph.D. program is guided by the view that the healing arts require a diversity of aptitudes, approaches, and conceptual models in order for the full mystery and depth of the psyche—including its somatic and spiritual expressions—to be integrated and attended with care.

At the heart of the program is a wider understanding of healing itself: therapy is one modality among a spectrum of traditions and practices that shape how we understand and respond to suffering, symptoms, and illness.

The program is informed by a depth psychological worldview in which human individuals are inseparable from and interdependent with larger archetypal, ancestral, familial, sociocultural, historical, ecological, and spiritual realities.

Accordingly, a holistic approach must not only take these larger systems into account, but also challenge approaches that isolate individuals from the surrounding human and more-than-human worlds.

This widens the lens of what therapy and healing can mean, beyond treating individuals alone, while continuing to recognize the profound value of individual well-being and therapeutic care.

The Meaning of Integration in the Context of Healing

Healing Across People,
Professions, and Systems

The program brings together practitioners from a wide range of backgrounds who share a commitment to a more expansive and inclusive understanding of healing.

Therapists
Counselors
Educators
Healthcare Professionals
Artists

Community Leaders
Spiritual Care Providers
Researchers
Activist
And More

Benefits

This academic specialization includes nine quarters of coursework over three academic years, followed by writing an original dissertation emanating from the student’s own selected area of research interest. Students in this program:

Join an advanced doctoral cohort of diverse professionals collaborating and deepening their work with clients and themselves.
Explore the growing field of depth psychological research and develop perspectives that help address the critical needs of our world.
Develop a greater capacity to work symbolically with images, dreams, symptoms, complexes, and synchronicity.
Work towards becoming advanced practitioners, academic educators, supervisors, or scholarly researchers in the field.
Examine the critical underpinnings of therapeutic processes and the broad range of theoretical approaches to mental, physical, and spiritual well-being.
Build mentoring relationships with distinguished faculty and experts devoted to supporting students in deepening their practice and their individuation journey.
Study the works of leading scholars who have bridged psychological, cultural, mythological, historical, and social traditions to advance broader understandings of human experience.
Develop advanced skills in important practice areas, such as somatic healing, sexuality, dream work, and spirituality.
Investigate the important connections between the health of an individual or group and the health of their environment and culture through courses that consider ecology, collective trauma, social justice, and cross-cultural dynamics.

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Contact Admissions

Michael Mirabella

Email address: mmirabella@pacifica.edu
Phone (call or text): 805-881-1311

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Career Pathways

Most students who enter this program have established careers, licenses, and certificates in particular areas of psychotherapy and other healing arts. There is a focus on research as relevant to applied practices and transdisciplinary frameworks. Post-graduate opportunities exist in higher education, authorship, workshop leadership, and deepening within the legal and ethical guidelines into one’s chosen profession. Students also attend the DPH program to create community-based endeavors to support the voices and experiences of marginalized individuals and groups.

Healing Does Not Only Happen in One Setting

How can healing be facilitated in settings as specific as therapy and as diverse as art, education, medicine, leadership, politics, economics, culture, community, ecology, and spirituality?

The aim is to translate information into application.

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Scholarships

Education Assistance
The Education Assistance Scholarship is sponsored by Pacifica Graduate Institute and offered to new and returning students based on extreme financial hardship and strong academic excellence. Awards are made annually at the beginning of each academic year. The award is $1,000 to be equally divided over the academic year. This scholarship is not renewable, and students must apply each academic year. Students enrolled in the PhD and PsyD Dissertation phase of their programs are not eligible for scholarship consideration.

Yellow Ribbon Matching Scholarship Pacifica Graduate Institute is pleased to announce that we have entered into an agreement with the Veteran’s Administration in support of veterans continuing their education under the Post 9/11 GI Bill. Pacifica has agreed to provide up to ten Yellow Ribbon Scholarships each year for qualifying veterans under the Post 9/11 GI Bill on a first-come first-serve basis. Students in the M.A. Counseling program will qualify for up to $6,500 per year, M.A. Engaged Humanities and Creative Life will qualify for up to $5,400 per year, and those in the doctoral programs will qualify for up to $7,800 per year.

C.G. and Emma Jung Scholarship Offered to newly admitted students entering into the Ph.D. Depth Psychology with Specialization in Integrative Therapy and Healing Practices. Average awards range from $2,000-$3,000. The number and amount of individual awards is contingent upon the number of eligible applications received. This scholarship is renewable provided recipients meet the required grade point average.

Curriculum Overview

Program Schedule: This program follows a hybrid model. Classes meet once each term on campus for five days during the Fall, Winter, and Spring terms. Studying, assignments, and readings are completed between class meetings, along with three weekend videoconference meetings each term.

The on-campus classes offered once a term are held Monday through Friday, for a total of three campus visits each year. No courses are offered during the Summer quarter, although registration for dissertation work is required.

The program will also feature a quarterly Somatic Practice Consultation Intensive and an annual Spring Advanced Depth Seminar for years 2 and 3. Special seminars and lectures may focus on a range of important practice areas, such as: Addictions, Dream Tending, Family Systems Theories, Sexuality and Gender, Organizational and Group Dynamics, Jung and Shamanism, Expressive and Therapeutic Arts, Healing Mythologies, Sociopolitical Contexts and Cultural Complexes, Adverse Childhood Experiences and Wellness, Shadow and Power in the Healing Professions, The Meaning of Integration, Evolution of Jungian Analysis, James Hillman’s Cultural Critique of Psychology, Alternative Healing Arts, Inner Life and Trauma, Somatic and Implicit Processes, Jung’s Red Book, Indigenous Healing Traditions, Treating the Soul in the Health and Medical Professions, Yoga Therapy, Therapeutic Vocations and Careers, and other current issues and movements influencing the healing professions.

19.5 Total units for first year | 20.5 Total units for second year | 19 Total units for third year
Total program units: 74 Units (59 Units in coursework, 15 Units in dissertation)

Requirements for Graduation

Students must complete a total of 74 quarter units to fulfill the degree requirement for graduation.
A minimum grade of “C” is required in each completed course.
A cumulative grade point average of 3.0 must be maintained.
Students must comply with attendance requirements as stated in the Student Handbook.
Students must successfully pass a comprehensive written examination at the end of the second year of coursework.
Students must successfully present a Control Paper describing their therapeutic or depth-oriented practice work with a particular client, family, or select group to two faculty members during the third year of practice consultation courses.
Students must successfully complete a comprehensive oral presentation in the final spring quarter of coursework.
Students must write, submit, and defend an original dissertation accepted by the faculty.
Students are required to take part in 50 hours of depth-oriented therapy, counseling, analysis, or an engaged self-reflective process with a provider in their field while enrolled. This is required for graduation and strongly recommended to support students in their educational experience in the program.

Education Requirements

The degree provides in-depth education in theory, applied contexts, and related-research contexts. Unlike the counseling and clinical doctoral programs at Pacifica Graduate Institute which have developed curricula and clinical training support for those wishing to sit for licensure exams to become psychologists, this specialized depth psychology program does not arrange, authorize, monitor, or supervise practice for licensure purposes.

Comprehensive Examination

The comprehensive examination consists of a written portion taken at the end of the second year and an oral portion taken at the end of the third year. The written exam is divided into three sections corresponding to the three study tracks of the specialization: Theory and Traditions of Depth Therapy; Psychology; Therapy, Counseling, and Healing Practices Informed by the Humanities, Arts, and Sciences; and Integrated Praxis: Research and Applied Contexts. It is designed to assess knowledge gained in the first two years of coursework and serves as a qualifying exam for students before continuing into the third year of study. Students in the Integrative Therapy & Healing Practices specialization who have successfully completed at least 29 units of Ph.D. coursework and who are in good standing are eligible to complete the written comprehensive examination. The third year oral examination consists of the student’s formal oral presentation addressing the ways the program has informed their work and their proposed dissertation topic..

Control Paper

During the third year Practice Consultation Group series, each student presents a control paper that demonstrates their applied work and the ability to synthesize a variety of appropriate therapeutic and/or healing arts perspectives while maintaining their own unique style of practice.

Doctoral Dissertation

The dissertation process involves the completion of all coursework in research methodologies, dissertation development, and dissertation writing. Requirements and procedures for enrolling in dissertation writing are detailed in the Dissertation Handbook. The Dissertation Committee is composed of a Chair, a Reader, and an External Reader. Each committee member must possess an earned doctorate based in part on a dissertation unless the Research Coordinator for the specialization waives this requirement.

The curriculum may vary depending upon changing academic needs. Selected courses may have online components. The required two-year dissertation period, following coursework, focuses on scholarly research and writing.

Program FAQs

What is a “hybrid” program?

A hybrid program combines learning in residential sessions with assignments, writing, and readings to be completed between residential sessions as well as minimal videoconferencing meetings. Pacifica utilizes D2L as our learning management system.

What kind of work is required in between residential sessions?

In between residential sessions, there will be required posts on D2L as well as videoconferencing. As stated above, there is much reading and writing between residential sessions.

How many hours of work are required in between residential sessions?

The hours of work depend on the unit load for each course. In addition to reading, viewing lectures, and writing assignments and required posts to D2L, videoconferencing sessions are required on two weekends per term.

Does the required master’s degree for entrance need to be in psychology?

No, the degree may be in any field and our students come from a variety of backgrounds. Commonly we see therapists, healing practioners, teachers, medical professionals, and others apply.

Does this program prepare for licensure?

No, as this program requires a master’s degree, we do have students who already have various licenses. However, this program does not have a licensure component. It does have a dissertation component.

A Larger Vision of Healing

Ph.D. in Integrative Therapy and Healing Practices