About Dr. Keith Witt

My Mission

My mission…my passion…is to help everyone be healthier, happier, and love better.

Relationships determine our quality of life — relationships with people, the world, our physical bodies, and all the different aspects of ourselves in the past/present/future. Healthy relationships generate harmony - harmony that most of us feel as love and health.

What creates satisfying love and health?

For thousands of years people in all cultures have explored every aspect of romance, passion, family dynamics, healing, purpose, spirituality, parenting, and intimacy. I want to share how this vast body of knowledge fits together into a beautiful, graceful whole that can be practically applied to every aspect of your life.

I’m a licensed clinical psychologist, lecturer and author dedicated to studying, teaching, and creating transformative healing systems. I’ve been teaching, writing, and practicing psychotherapy in Santa Barbara, California since 1973.

I decided to become a psychotherapist at 15 when I entered therapy myself and realized it was a natural language - a native tongue - to me. I wanted to participate and contribute, not just as a client but also as therapist and teacher.

I was born in Hawaii, raised in suburban Los Angeles and have lived and worked in Santa Barbara since 1967. With that background, it’s only natural that I embraced the Southern California lifestyle. I’ve been an enthusiastic surfer, a tennis player, and from 2000 to 2006 fronted the rock band, Blown Head Gasket. Along the way, I was also trained as a tap dancer. I have a black belt in Shotokan Karate and continue to study martial arts. These days I enjoy daily tai chi practice.

I met my wife Becky in 1973, and we’ve been together ever since. We have two grown children, Ethan and Zoe. We’re living proof that with insight and understanding--and a lot of work--you can achieve enduring harmony in all aspects of your life.

In the end… it’s all about love.

What I Am About

The combined work on this site is a cosmology, heavily informed by Ken Wilber’s Integral meta-theory - a theory that organizes, enhances, and connects all systems. New forms arise from systems connecting, and the interconnected systems on this site all fit together into a cosmology of love and transcendence that I want to share with you.

As I and this world have evolved in the last five decades, this material has evolved, integrating one beautiful set of perspectives after another, generating one cool new understanding and practice after another. If you learn these perspectives/practices and live them, you and your life will change for the better and you will discover and enhance your unique blend of superpowers. All of us humans have superpowers, whether we know it or not, and my mission has always been to help as many people as possible to develop their superpowers to support love, health, success, and the evolution of consciousness.

Background and Experience

I’ve worked with individuals, couples, families, and groups. I’ve lectured and lead workshops internationally. I’ve been a guest on countless podcasts. I’ve conducted over 70,000 therapy sessions and counting.

Education

Bachelor of Arts in psychology with honors - University of California Santa Barbara, 1973
Masters of Arts Degree in Counseling Psychology - UCSB Department of Education, 1975
Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology - The Fielding Institute, 1982. 
My dissertation, An Investigation of the Effectiveness of Talking Plus Touching in Enhancing Health, explored the relative health benefits of combining therapeutic touch with talking in psychotherapy sessions.

Teaching Experience

I have been a professor at the Santa Barbara Graduate Institute, primarily exploring theories of conjoint and family therapy. I’ve also taught at the UCSB Health Center, Antioch University, the Fielding Institute, the Santa Barbara Adult Education, Boulder Integral, and have lectured all over the US and internationally.

Research, Writings and Lectures

Books:

Integral Mindfulness: from Clueless to Dialed-in
Waking Up: Psychotherapy as Art, Spirituality and Science
Sessions: All Therapy Involves Relationships Integrating toward Unity
The Attuned Family: How to Be a Great Parent to Your Children and a Great Lover to Your Spouse
The Gift of Shame: Why We Need Shame and How to Use It to Love and Grow
100 Reasons to Not have a Secret affair
Trauma into Transcendence: the four stages of trauma work
Loving completely—a Five Star practice for creating great relationships
Shadow Light: Illuminations at the edge of darkness
Shadow Light Workbook
Integral Mindfulness—from clueless to dialed-in

Dr. Keith Witt