Therapist training - a fantasy
by JJ

The student class would be 30 to start, expecting a yield of 5-10 graduates. It would be an intensive program. All evaluation would be based on essays and other projects. No exams.

The first year (12 months, not an academic year, with one week holiday between each 3 month period) they would study literature and communications, and jobs would be available to them in the school-owned and operated restaurant, and rooms would be available in a dorm (2 to a room). They would have three professors plus a variety of speakers. They would spend 1/3 of their time in learning critical analysis, 1/3 in creating original works, and 1/3 in fairly standard communications workshops ensuring they develop listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills. They would also have a basic art survey/technique course.

Weekend field trips would include a large urban centre, a rural setting, a prison, a psych ward, a museum, an art gallery, a factory, and a school.

The second year they would study the development of Western thought with a thorough survey of Western philosophy and religion from Plato through to the present day (and history to support their understanding of the context of philosophical and religious development) . This would include major schools of psychological thought. Single rooms still in a dorm setting would be available to them for this year, with communal eating and recreation facilities, like a traditional dorm.

Weekend/longer field trips would include visits to many different churches, ceremonies, etc., and a 2 day sojourn in a cloistered monastery followed immediately by a trip to Disney World. There would be a one-week trip to Europe visiting Italy and Auschwitz on the last day. Students would continue to work in the restaurant, and in the bookstore run by the school.

The third year they would study the development of Eastern thought including Taoism, Buddism, and Krishnamurti. I still have much research to do around this. They would be required to take a martial arts course throughout the year and field trips would include a buddist monastery followed by a psychic/new age fair, and perhaps something like a Shugyo. They would work in the daycare run by the school. They would live in individual studio apartments.

The fourth year would start with four weeks on a reserve observing the shamanist tradition on-site, camping. I have even more research to do around this. However after this initial period there would be a 4-week "break." During this time the student would select a personal project - study or travel or anything that they would like to do. It would not be necessary that it be "productive."

The next 9 months would be the 9 months of the Self, during which they would pursue their personal project. The school would fund these projects up to a certain dollar amount. Students would be required to post a daily journal on a site visible to their classmates and instructors. They could live in the dorms or make alternative arrangements. There would be jobs available to them in the restaurant, bookstore, or daycare, if they wanted.

On their return the students would spend one month living together in a wing of the dorm, 2 to a room again, and each would have one day to fill with whatever s/he would want to pass on from his/her 9 months of the self to the others.

After a one-week break, the students would reconvene for the fifth year. They would have one week in which to decide on a group project for the year, to serve the community in which the school is located. The fifth year would be spent on this project. Each student would be required to maintain their personal diary and as well group reports would be due each month. Vacation schedules would have to be determined by the students.

If they wished they would be welcome to work in the school enterprises. Living arrangements would be up to them, although they would be welcome to trade work for room in the dorms - less for shared accomodation, more for a studio apartment. This would be the case for the next two years as well.

In the sixth year the group would study the various schools of psychological thought in more detail, psychopharmacology, neuroanatomy, and the DSM-whatever. Towards the end of the year they would begin a mentoring placement process and find a psychologist under whom to apprentice for the next year.

During the mentoring process they would lead groups (therapy but also recreational - sports, arts, etc,) and gradually provide some (free) individual counselling and referral at the school's wellness centre. This would encompass the 7th year, after which they would receive a certificate.

Fanciful, and possibly economically unfeasible, but we all have our daydreams.