A Letter From President Tom Potterfield

Thank you for your interest in the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology (ITP).

ITP is grounded in timeless values that foster growing consciousness and compassion as well as academic excellence. Our graduate programs facilitate the development of the full range of human capabilities including the intellectual, physical, and spiritual dimensions. Here, your creative impulses and spiritual development will be nurtured along side your intellectual development.

ITP is widely recognized as the global leader in transpersonal education. Our continued commitment to academic excellence is reflected in the groundbreaking research of our core faculty. A mere sampling of faculty research interests includes transcendent experiences, the nature of consciousness, grief, forgiveness, social justice, trauma, feminism, creativity, Jungian psychology, and various forms of Eastern and Western spiritual experience. Faculty and student academic prowess is reflected in an impressive array of publications in peer-reviewed journals and presentations at prestigious conferences, such as the annual meetings of the American Psychological Association (APA), the European Transpersonal Association, and the Association of Transpersonal Psychology.

Importantly, the APA has continually recognized the school’s strong academic performance. In the past decade, 15 ITP students received APA awards for their dissertation research. Recently, Dr. Robert Frager, ITP’s founder and core faculty member, received the Charlotte and Karl Buehler Award from the APA for “outstanding and lasting contributions to Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology”; and Core Faculty Dr. Charles Tart received the APA Abraham Maslow Award for his “numerous contributions to the profession and practice of Humanistic Psychology.”

This outstanding foundation of core transpersonal values and demonstrated academic excellence allows us to expand our influence in the world. We continue to develop professional alliances with groups such as the Association of Transpersonal Psychology, the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco, the Stanford University Center for Family and Community Medicine, and the Ravenswood School District in East Palo Alto, California. Our Global students are involved in work with AIDS patients in South Africa, consultation on Indigenous Culture in Mexico, Transpersonal Education in Macau, and Caregiver Well-being research in Hong Kong.

We continue to add new programs to meet student needs such as a full-time M.A. in Counseling Psychology in our Residential program and the Transpersonal Coaching Professional Training within our Global Masters and Certificate Program. In addition, ITP’s Clinical Ph.D. program’s plans for applying for APA accreditation continue to evolve.

Again, I thank you for your interest and hope the pages of our website provide a better sense of the opportunities and challenges you would face as a member of our unique and creative community.

Sincerely,

Tom Potterfield, President