• Understanding the complexity and richness of being human, of who we are, of the importance of meaning and awareness in living our lives.

• Skills to work with a wide variety of bio-psycho-social-spiritual issues as they manifest in different age groups and cultures.

• Diverse philosophies of care and support including an understanding of meta-skills and attitudes such as doing-to and being-with.

• The many different forms and systems of care of the San Francisco mental health and social services programs.

• A process-work, phenomenological approach to working with symptoms and altered states of consciousness including understanding complex phenomena such as Schizophrenia and Dementias - including Alzheimer's disease- as they manifest in the fastest growing population in the United States: our elderly, and the underserved: the chronically mental ill.

• Expressive Arts Therapy as a mean to give people who had lost their cognitive functions, including language, their voices.

• Gero-Psychological Research and Care.

• Transpersonal Psychotherapy and Spiritual Care.

• End of Life training and sensitivity.

In order to facilitate these goals, intensive supervision, seminars, consultation and on-going feedback are provided. The full-time, twelve-month internship provides interns with training in the specific areas of crisis intervention, brief counseling for individuals and couples, workshop and group facilitation, and consultation and outreach. Interns have the opportunity to work with the broad range of student problems encountered in a university setting and to participate in all aspects of PACIFIC INSTITUTE programs including staff meetings, case conferences and staff development and training.