Introducing Adler Graduate Professional School
Our Mission is to
• inspire learning, research, and integration in psychology and human sciences;
• educate practitioners in applying what they learn for the betterment of humankind;
• uphold Adlerian values by expanding the courage to connect and contribute;
• create value for all our stakeholders.
Vision:
We cultivate innovation, integration, and inspiration for the “we” in “thou”
Overview of Programs
Adler Graduate Professional School grants a Master of Psychology (M.Psy.)* degree to prepare students for providing psychological services in counselling or clinical settings, for registration as Psychological Associates in the Province of Ontario, and for further study in professional psychology. The 75 credits leading to the degree, including a Major Project and practicum, may be completed in two years full-time study or 4 years part-time study consisting of three trimesters each year including summers.
For students who do not have an undergraduate honours degree (60 credits) in psychology, the School offers a Transitional Diploma designed to provide the equivalent of an undergraduate honours degree. Applicants must have completed 12 credits of psychology including introductory and abnormal. The 48-credit diploma program may be completed over 3 trimesters of full-time study or 6 trimesters of part-time study including summers. It includes courses in biological, cognitive, and social bases of behaviour plus psychology of the individual.
AGPS also grants certificates in
- Adlerian Psychotherapy
- Post-Master’s Psychotherapy
- Psychological Assessment.
Adler International Learning, in association with AGPS and Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto (OISE/UT), offers Certificates in Leadership Coaching including a Professional Coaching Certificate program that is accredited by the International Coach Federation.
Professional Education
AGPS was formed to promote education for practitioners in the helping professions. Programs are offered at the graduate level, or in preparation for graduate work, meaning studies undertaken by students in AGPS programs are at or informed by the forefront of relevant professional disciplines. Graduate-level students are expected to show
originality in the application of knowledge and an understanding of how the boundaries of knowledge are advanced through research. They will be asked to deal with complex issues both systematically and creatively and to show originality in tackling and solving problems.
Master of Psychology, as compared with a research-oriented Master of Arts or Master of Science, is a profession-oriented master’s program that draws on students holding bachelor’s degrees or first professional degrees from varied academic backgrounds. It is designed to provide these students with a selection of courses and exercises intended to prepare them for practice in psychology or related fields or, if they are already involved in the field, to extend their knowledge base and skills as practitioners.
The emphasis in professional education is on learning the knowledge, skills, and attitudes required for excellence in practice. This requires transforming
• Teaching into learning
• Careers into callings
• Theory into practice and vice-versa
Organization and Governance
AGPS is a division of Adler School of Professional Studies Inc., a nonsectarian, independent, commuter institution incorporated in the Province of Ontario. It is governed by a Board of Directors elected by the Shareholders and chaired by a President. The Board has responsibility for strategic planning, for management of resources, and for the financial well-being of the School. It hires a Chief Executive Officer who is responsible for the administrative functions of the School. The Board also hires an Academic Vice-President who appoints a Dean to hire and lead faculty for each degree program and a Director to hire and lead faculty for each certificate or diploma program. Deans and Directors are responsible for academic budgets related to their program. The Faculties of degree, certificate, and diploma programs have responsibility for curriculum, admissions requirements, and graduation standards within each program.
Accreditation
The Master of Psychology program is offered under consent of the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities for the period from 25 January 2011 to 24 January 2016.
Location
The main campus is conveniently located in downtown Toronto near major subway stops. Courses for degrees are offered at the main campus. Courses leading to certificates and diplomas may also be offered at OISE/UT, at nearby educational premises that have a long-term relationship with AGPS, and at schools and colleges internationally.
Educational Orientation
AGPS bases its philosophical assumptions, Core Values and Curriculum Guiding Principles on Individual Psychology, a comprehensive science-of-living system originated and developed by the well-known Austrian psychiatrist, Alfred Adler (1870-1937). Individual Psychology, or Adlerian Psychology, emphasizes the uniqueness of every individual and stresses the individual’s relationship with society.
At the core of the School’s approach to the helping professions—and by implication to professional training—is a philosophical assumption about the dynamics of being human that draws on the work of Adler.
We are all caught in a paradoxical tension between being ourselves, the centre and creator of our own phenomenological universe, and fulfilling the demands of a social community without which we cannot survive. On the one hand, we are all unique human beings with a strong need and desire to express ourselves fully in our life and work. On the other hand, we are embedded in a web of relationships with other human beings, a member of multiple systems, and irretrievably part of humanity.
Our creativity in resolving this seeming paradox between self-expression and embeddedness determines, to a significant extent, our level of success and fulfillment and, according to Adler, our mental health. The key to resolving the paradox lies in using our unique selves to make a contribution to and with others.
The goal of AGPS is to develop helping professionals whose work will be thoroughly grounded in the intention to help clients resolve and transcend this paradox between self-expression and embeddedness creatively in their own work and life. Even when that work is narrowly focused on a specific issue or area, we believe that operating from such a higher-level intention will enhance both healing and possibilities for growth and development.
History
AGPS was formed with the express purpose of offering degrees and other advanced professional education in the helping professions to students from Ontario and elsewhere. Adlerian graduate-level professional education has been a presence in Ontario since 1978.
When the Ontario government passed the Post-secondary Choice and Excellence Act, 2000, members of the Adler community recognized the opportunity, for the first time in Ontario, to establish an independent degree-granting graduate professional institution that could meet the professional needs of local students.
AGPS is affiliated with the Adler International Learning Inc. (Adler Coaching), an organization that since 1998 has brought a scholarly dimension to accredited coach training and to the profession of coaching. Organizational and educational design wisdom that supported the development of the Adler Coaching model also supports all AGPS degree and other programs.
Core Values
The AGPS organization, sister institutions, curricula, and interactions with one another are informed by nine core values derived from Adlerian philosophy.
Values that serve to anchor us in who we are
§ Integrity
§ Authenticity
§ Creativity
Values that guide our development towards realizing our potential
§ Courage
§ Continued Learning
§ Self-responsibility
Values that guide us in creating and maintaining meaningful and productive relationships:
§ Appreciating Uniqueness
§ Collaboration
§ Compassion
Academic Principles
In designing the structure and curricula for AGPS programs, academic staff and faculty examined the Mission, Vision, Core Values, and professional education principles. From these, they derived a set of Academic Principles to serve as guidelines for all AGPS teaching and training:
Principle 1. Applied focus. AGPS prepares human service professionals to apply knowledge of psychological and other human science theory, practice and research in service delivery, organizational, and educational settings.
Principle 2. Professional emphasis. AGPS requires students to become knowledgeable of the history and role expectations of the particular profession to which they aspire; AGPS takes a leadership role in upholding and promoting excellence within those professions.
Principle 3. Upholding standards. AGPS upholds the highest standards of postsecondary education and of training within each profession it prepares students to enter; AGPS maintains liaison with accrediting and professional bodies in order to update those standards as the needs of the profession change.
Principle 4. Ethical duty. AGPS impresses on human service professionals-in-training the importance of their ethical and fiduciary duty to clients and the specifics of the ethical code for their chosen profession.
Principle 5. Enhancing relationships. AGPS believes that the basic and material component of human services is relationships, including professionals’ relationship with themselves; therefore, the curriculum provides opportunities for self-awareness, insight and self-development in the interest of building the capacity for collaborative relationships with clients and within the social environment.
Principle 6. Adult learning. AGPS subscribes to an adult education model, expecting students to take responsibility for their own learning, at the same time as providing learning opportunities for working professionals and those who must travel in order to study. AGPS strives to provide and continually improve resources that support students in becoming responsible learners.
Principle 7. Adlerian grounding. AGPS relies on the philosophy and psychological theories of Alfred Adler to provide its values and guiding principles. Because these principles promote the betterment of humanity as a criterion for judging the value of behaviour and knowledge, AGPS welcomes and teaches a range of theories and techniques, whatever their source.
Principle 8. Resource-based approach. AGPS recognizes that society, many clients, and some professions emphasize pathology as a means of directing treatment; however, wherever possible, students will learn to utilize a resource-based approach to clinical interventions and professional development that acknowledges what individuals know and are capable of accomplishing as a scaffold for healing and for further development.
Principle 9. Social justice. Through education and public advocacy, AGPS is committed to redressing societal wrongs derived from injustice, exploitation, and discrimination.
Principle 10. Diverse context. AGPS recognizes the importance of a diverse context in which racial/cultural/religious/social/gender differences are celebrated; AGPS promotes social equality, acceptance, understanding, and respect among its students, graduates, faculty, staff, clientele, and society.
Principle 11. Embedded systems. AGPS does not teach or practice as though minds are separate from brains, brains are separate from bodies, or bodies are separate from the social and natural world in which they are embedded.
Principle 12. Research support. AGPS supports student and faculty research as a means of furthering individual mastery, grounding practice in empirical results, adding to the fund of evidence-based techniques, and transforming theory into practice and vice-versa.
Principle 13. Service delivery. AGPS provides mental health, supportive, and transformative services to individuals, families, groups, organizations, and underserved populations.
Principle 14. Technological enhancement. AGPS respects that, when delivery is properly matched with content, technology can help provide higher quality professional education as well as promoting economy and convenience in learning; however, AGPS recognizes that in-person participation in courses and field experience and face-to-face contact with faculty and other students are essential to the development of human service skills.
Principle 15. Reflective practitioner model. AGPS supports education and training in academic, experiential and actual practice settings so as best to prepare students to meet the demands of their clients; the scholar-practitioner model stresses the development of knowledge through practice, an approach that supports and complements the scientist-practitioner model. AGPS supports practice-based evidence in addition to evidence-based practice.
Principle 16. Evidence-based evaluation. AGPS is committed to the utilization of evidence-based practice and evaluation on a student, faculty and program basis so as to guide its curriculum, professional development, educational practices, and service provision.
* This program is offered under the written consent of the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities for the period from 25 January 2011 to 24 January 2016. Prospective students are responsible for satisfying themselves that the program and the degree will be appropriate to their needs (e.g., acceptable to potential employers, professional licensing bodies or other educational institutions.)
Contact:
email: info@adler.ca
telephone (local & international): +1 416 923 4419
toll-free (US & Canada): +1 877 923 4419
address: 890 Yonge Street, 9th Floor
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4W 3P4
