I've been relentlessly studying the various alternative psychology programs and here's my assessment, which is obviously partly subjective, partly objective, partly intersubjective, and so forth.


1. The Institute of Transpersonal Psychology: PhD Clinical program isn't APA accredited, so you might have trouble getting licensed in certain states. If your goal is to practice in California or most other states, you're fine though, and this looks to be the best all around alternative school. Integrates mind, body, and spirit. Founders are Jewish, Sufi (yes, I just said they're Jewish sufis. Life is paradox) aikido masters with Harvard PhDs. The ATP (association for transpersonal psych) is down the street and was founded by same guys who founded the ITP. Great faculty: charles tart, jenny wade, etc. Not every student here is a genius, but a few definitely are.

2. The Pacifica Graduate Institute: Beautiful campus, happy people, the place to go if you are into depth psychology, and archetypes, and mythology, etc. a la Jung, Campbell, and Hillman. PhD Clinical program is not APA accredited (there are no accredited PhD Clinical programs at any ultra-alternative resident school) so ditto what was said about ITP. Campus is gorgeous, food is organic, BEDSHEETS are organic. But not the place to go if you are interested in the perennial philosophy, mysticism, the ontological notion of the great chain of being developed by Houston Smith, structural human development etc. The idea is that the Pacifica folks conflate pre-rational and trans-rational states, which is dangerous in psychology. A mystic's visions and a schizophrenic's are not the same. Amazing place, behind the times, not very in touch with transpersonal psychology since Jung and there has been A LOT since Jung. If you are a hindu who goes to burning man and eats psychedelic mushrooms, don't go here. If you are a ex-pot-smoking meditator who likes world music and yogurt and has a secret star-trek fetsish, go here. Classes are one weekend a month. Lots of old people. Did I mention the gorgeous campus?

3. John F. Kennedy University. Most underrated alternative psych school. Has programs in Integral Psychology (in this case think Ken Wilber more than Aurobindo), Transpersonal Psych, Conciousness Studies. Super cool commuter school. Very friendly staff. Not as weird and culty as the other schools (except for the hard-core Wilber freaks in Integral Studies). Worth checking out. JFK seems like it's star is on the rise. Someday they should be king of the hill in alternative psych. For now, ITP is still top dog.

4. Naropa. Focus on meditation is a plus. No PhD or PsyD. Cool, young, good-looking student body. Kind of woo-woo in a post-modern post-structuralist aperspectival relativist kind of way. The Colorado smug hippie asshole is a little different than the California smug hippie asshole (see below).

5: CIIS. Meh. SF is a great town, but the ITP is a half hour train ride from SF so why not go to the ITP? Despite being founded in homage to aurobindo, the school almost systematically shuns hierarchies (a performative contradiction in that they create a hierarchy wherein hierarchies are on the bottom, get it?) and many faculty are very stuck in a nihilistic "everyone's truth is equally valid" soup of woo-woo. If you want to go to the temple of post-modern liberalism, why not just go to ANY OTHER UNIVERSITY in America? If you want to go to a school where development and evolution are acknowledged as real (an oak tree is more developed than an acorn; a cell is more complex than a molecule; martin luther king is more advanced than hitler) check out JFK or the ITP. The PsyD program is APA accredited, but a PhD is a better degree than a PsyD in that you can still practice and are more able to land teaching jobs. Also, PsyD CIIS students don't get to take many, if any, cool alternative classes. PhD Clinical Students at ITP certainly do; they're made to. If you're not going to get to take cool alternartive classes, you might as well check out the programs at JFK, Fielding, and Saybrook. Most CIIS alum working at the other alternative schools got their PhD (back when CIIS gave them) in Psychology or in Philosophy (which still exists). One credit to CIIS is that Stan Grof, the world's most badass psychologist teaches here, but if you really want contact with him you should just go to his private workshops or check out Wisdom University. Stan is also on the board of directors (I think it's called the coven of wizards or circle of jedis or something) at ITP. If you want a PhD in religion, I would say look at Wisdom, but otherwise Philosophy, Cosmology, and Conciousness at CIIS is pretty cool. For Psych...meh.