Education and Training

International School for Psychotherapy

International School for Psychotherapy, Counseling and Group Leadership

In September 1995 the Harmony Institute, in collaboration with the Concord Institute and the Transcultural Network, founded The International School for Psychotherapy, Counseling, and Group Leadership — a three year post-graduate professional training program in Humanistic/Existential/Transpersonal Psychology for doctors, psychologists, health professionals, and teachers who have completed their formal academic training and are seeking training in this particular orientation to their work. There are both internal (for students in the St. Petersburg area) and external (for students living away from the St. Petersburg area) training programs, and the number of students is now 130: 70 students in the three-year internal course and 60 in the three-year external one. The internal students come from the St. Petersburg area, the external students from different parts of Russia, Ukraine, and Moldova. Since 1998 more than 500 students graduated from the School. Students have come from all over Russia and beyond to attend the International School, for it provides a unique and needed educational experience to Russian professionals. 

The Transcultural Network for Global Psychology and Education was founded in June 1990 at the Concord Institute in Concord, Massachusetts by an international group of educators and psychologists. Its purpose was to support international professional exchange in these two fields generally, and specifically, with colleagues in Russia and Lithuania with whom this group had already worked. From 1990 to 1995 the Network and the Concord Institute sponsored a number of professional exchanges and trainings, in the United States, in Europe, and in the former Soviet Union. Chapter 18 of the History of Psychosynthesis in North America here. History of Psychosynthesis in North America, Discovering our History 1995-2010, is available for purchase at http://aap-psychosynthesis.org.

A specific project sent "founding trainers" to train the staff at the Harmony Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia in Humanistic/Existential/Transpersonal Psychotherapy, Counseling, and Group work. Colleagues from England, Norway, Canada, as well as many parts of the United States, joined these training sessions as trainers. It also sent to the Harmony Institute printed materials, video and audio tapes, and electronic equipment for training purposes, and an extensive library. A newsletter was also published during this period.

For the next seven years the Transcultural Network contributed to the development of the International School by sending teachers and curricula, helping to raise funds, and publishing materials for use in the program. It also certified the graduates of the program in concert with the Concord Institute. A third organization, the Uniterra Foundation, joined these two as the receiver of funds to support this collaborative work. In 2002 the Transcultural Network was subsumed under the Concord Institute and its services are now carried on through the cooperation of the Concord and Harmony Institutes with the support of the Uniterra Foundation.

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