MA Counseling Psychology: 2017 Thesis Presentation Day

Posted by Nikole Hollenitsch on May 19, 2017 11:32:19 PM

The Friday before commencement is the M.A. Counseling Psychology Program's Thesis Presentation Day. Students who wish to present their thesis to fellow classmates, family, staff, and professors have the opportunity to showcase their research findings and experiences throughout the procesw. Today we would like to highlight all of the presenters and the titles of their papers. Thesis presentations for the M.A. Counseling Psychology Program will take place on Friday, May 26th at Pacifica's Ladera Lane Campus.

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Posted in: Counseling Psychology, Pacifica News, graduate school

Counseling Psychology and Dream Tending

Posted by Nikole Hollenitsch on May 12, 2017 12:27:41 PM

A guest post by Stephen Aizenstat, Ph.D.

Pacifica's first Graduate Degree program was in Counseling Psychology, an extension of Pacifica’s then named Counseling Skills Certificate Program with roots in community mental health. Next to the University of California Santa Barbara, we offered outreach peer counseling to returning veterans coming back from Viet Nam as well as working with individuals dealing with drug and alcohol related challenges. What a time it was! All of us were learning the newest "treatment" strategies and methods, just then evolving out of the "Human Potential Movement." Our mentors were folks like Virginia Stair, Erik Erikson, Fritz Perls, and all kinds of leaders in the emerging fields of couples and family therapy. Combine this with a sprinkling of Ram Dass, the Grateful Dead, and too many others to count, we developed increasingly sophisticated counseling skills that to this day form the core of what we now know as a professional M.A. Counseling Psychology Program with emphasis in Marriage and Family Therapy, Professional Clinical Counseling, and Depth Psychology.

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Posted in: The Psyche, Counseling Psychology, graduate school, images, active imagination

Peace Corps Meets Pacifica: Cultivating, Counseling, and Stories from Cameroon

Posted by Nikole Hollenitsch on May 4, 2017 11:13:04 PM

Peace Corps Meets Pacifica: Cultivating, Counseling, and Stories from Cameroon An Interview with Paul D. Coverdell Fellow and Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, Courtney McCubbin
A guest post by Bonnie Bright, Ph.D.

Nothing can substitute for experience as a way of knowing. It serves as a powerful initiation process that begins the moment you put your foot on a particular path. This appears to be the case for Courtney McCubbin, who served in the Peace Corps in Cameroon in Africa from 2001 to 2005. While McCubbin struggled mightily to learn French in order to communicate with the people there, a task that frequently brought her to tears, she took comfort her deep desire to help people, and threw herself into projects in reforestation, agroforestry, and agronomy, which contributed to the healing of the forests and the farmers there who needed help.

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Posted in: Counseling Psychology, Connecting Cultures, C.G. Jung, Ecopsychology, graduate school, depth psychology, active imagination

Tending Soul with Military, Veterans, and First Responders: A Depth Psychological Approach

Posted by Nikole Hollenitsch on Apr 12, 2017 3:56:30 PM

A guest post by Bonnie Bright, Ph.D.

There is a certain kind of transformational process that demands the most and the best of us so that we can respond to traumatic situations, just as military, veterans, and first responders do on a daily basis. From a depth psychological perspective, this kind of transformation can be initiated through a psycho-mythic journey to warriorhood, believe Ed Tick and John Becknell, who offer archetypal and depth psychological frameworks for military, veterans, and first responders, including police officers, sheriff departments, border patrol, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs (Emergency Medical Technicians), and dispatchers and other individuals who take emergency calls.

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Posted in: Counseling Psychology, archetypes, Pacifica Events, Mythology, clinical psychology, Psychology, depth psychology, military

A Deeper Relationship with the Mind: Counseling, Creativity, and Transcendence

Posted by Nikole Hollenitsch on Feb 7, 2017 10:10:09 AM

A Deeper Relationship with the Mind: Counseling, Creativity, and Transcendence An Interview with Adrianna Attento
A guest post by Bonnie Bright, Ph.D.

Even before getting her Master’s degree in Counseling psychology at Pacifica, Adriana Attento was working in the field of psychology. During that same period, she was also doing a lot of writing—meeting with a friend to free write next to the ocean every morning for an hour—and she was also meditating as a regular spiritual practice. Somehow, she now believes, the combination of these two practices opened something up for her, creating a “flow, and abundance of images that images that felt very potent.”

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Posted in: Counseling Psychology, Therapist, Alumni, depth psychology, meditation

Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists (LMFTs) eligible to work at the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA)

Posted by Nikole Hollenitsch on Oct 10, 2016 1:48:36 PM

A big congratulations to the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapy (CAMFT) for working to grant eligible LMFTs employment at the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA)!

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Posted in: Counseling Psychology, Current Affairs, Pacifica News, graduate school, vocation, Education

The Value of Multi-Cultural Perspectives in Depth Psychotherapy: An Interview with Dr. Matthew Bennett

Posted by Erik Davis on Jun 22, 2016 2:41:33 PM

A Guest Post by Bonnie Bright, Ph.D.

Counseling is an applied healing art that helps us address suffering, enrich personal lives, activate our potential, to live more fully, and to develop more adaptive capacities to life in the view of Dr. Matthew Bennett, a psychotherapist and lecturer who teaches in the M.A. Counseling Psychology Program at Pacifica Graduate Institute. More, psychotherapists and counselors that have a depth psychological orientation are prepared for a “broad spectrum slice of the human experience,” which for Bennett, includes the ability to be emotionally present in difficult emotional circumstances or even to simply better hold and tolerate emotionally powerful situations.

Depth psychology is grounded in the humanities, Bennett reminded me when we connected for an interview on the topic, and therefore it can contribute to an individual experiencing a fuller and richer life. Being able to identify with different kinds of people and to accommodate varying perspectives are just some of the advantages that depth training can contribute to a therapeutic practice. In addition, if one is willing to be a student of the human mind, and of the context provided by mythology and literature, it all serves to “broaden us out”—in a depth psychological way.

Jung spoke of his own work in archeological terms, which does imply a depth that is “going toward the center,” Matthew points out. All depth psychological orientations anchor us, and mythology, storytelling, dreams—even reading fiction—each express some dynamic of what it means to be human. Each contains energetics that are useful in reconciling opposing points of view. That’s how depth becomes breadth, Matthew says. It enables us to countenance the deeper or chthonic layers of life and to draw closer to the archetypes, where things become not only more dynamic and more irrational, but also more powerful.

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Posted in: Counseling Psychology, Psychology, depth psychology

Peace Corps and Pacifica Graduate Institute Announce New Paul D. Coverdell Fellows Program

Posted by Erik Davis on Jun 21, 2016 4:35:32 PM

LOS ANGELES, CA, June 21, 2016 – The Peace Corps and Pacifica Graduate Institute today announced the launch of a new Paul D. Coverdell Fellows Program that will provide graduate school scholarships to returned Peace Corps volunteers. All program Fellows will complete internships in underserved American communities while they complete their studies, allowing them to bring home and expand upon the skills they learned as volunteers. 

“We are delighted to partner with Pacifica Graduate Institute to support our returned volunteers as they pursue higher education and continue their commitment to service,” Peace Corps Director Carrie Hessler-Radelet said. “Communities are moved forward by the selflessness of volunteers, and returned Peace Corps volunteers have unique skills and experiences to offer their local communities.”

Fellows selected for the program will have the opportunity to earn a master’s degree through Pacifica’s M.A. program in Counseling Psychology with Emphasis in Marriage and Family Therapy, Professional Clinical Counseling and Depth Psychology. Fellows selected for the program will receive $1,750 per quarter for up to 10 quarters.

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Posted in: Counseling Psychology

Teaching a Gurdjieff Movements intensive in Goa, India

Posted by Nikole Hollenitsch on Feb 9, 2016 10:31:34 PM

A Faculty Spotlight on M.A. Counseling Psychology's Core Faculty Member Avrom Altman

From January 18th through January 25th, Pacifica Professor Avrom Altman taught an eight-day Gurdjieff Movements Intensive in Goa, India. The intensive was attended by 47 participants from 20 countries. The participants were primarily teachers of the Gurdjieff Movements in their respective countries: India, Israel, Japan, South Korea, France, Norway, Germany, Kazakhstan, Sweden, Italy, Taiwan, Iran, China, USA, Mexico, Ireland, Ukraine, UK, Romania, and Russia.

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Posted in: Counseling Psychology, somatic bodywork, Somatic Studies

Pacifica Students Awarded State-Wide MFT Education Stipend

Posted by Nikole Hollenitsch on Nov 23, 2015 4:37:29 PM

A guest post by Willow Young, M.A., L.M.F.T., Chair of Pacifica's M.A. Counseling Psychology Program

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Posted in: Counseling Psychology, Therapist, Pacifica News