About Us - The Essence of SWIHA

We are a Spirit-driven sanctuary

As a conscious college-community healing center, Southwest Institute of Healing Arts is committed to providing the best training available while creating a transformational life experience for our students and those you will learn to serve.

Your success is our mission

Southwest Institute of Healing Arts' mission is to help individuals discover their gifts and graces, and support them in taking their skills and talents out into the world in a loving and profitable way.

We have a deep commitment to providing on-going entrepreneurial support for holistic healthcare practitioners in private practice and to those establishing or growing a business. SWIHA embraces individual, community and global healing, and teaches how to ‘Touch Lives, Heal Bodies & Free Souls.’

Holistic Health Care: The Original Way to ‘Go Green’

We advocate environmental sustainability through our holistic health care programs.  We will teach you how to create wellness using ecological, non-toxic resources, ancient healing modalities, holistic nutrition and natural stress management techniques. 

Our goals go beyond the Hippocratic Oath to ‘Do No Harm’ – we strive to teach conscious health professionals to ‘Do More Good.’  SWIHA embodies ‘green health care’, and we are taking the lead to inspire local and national practitioners to do the same.  Through conferences, education and outreach, we strive to share ideas and solidify a truly ‘green’ conscious community.

We embrace life-long learning

Our state-recognized and nationally accredited programs provide students with comprehensive training by dedicated, exceptional, and accomplished educators who are actively practicing in the holistic health care or healing arts field. All of the programs offered at SWIHA are designed to prepare students to begin in entry-level positions in their chosen field while they are completing the requirements for the more advanced Holistic Health Careers. Life-long learning is modeled and encouraged.

The core values on which the college was founded, and on which it continues to operate are:

Spirit-Directed
We believe in the body-mind-spirit connection and acknowledge a higher power, a divine plan and the spiritual nature of health and healing, life and death, the known and the unknown. We believe we are spiritual beings having a human experience. While we do not subscribe to or endorse any particular dogma or doctrine, we openly acknowledge the divine presence in our lives. We embrace prayer, mediation, divine inspiration, intuition and the great mystery of life.

Community-Centered
SWIHA is actively involved in the community as a way of providing service and showing gratitude.

Emphasize Choice and Flexibility
There are a minimum number of core classes required, with the majority of individuals discovering and developing their unique gifts and talents. SWIHA is an open entry-open exit school, offering day, night, and weekend classes in semi-modular, continuous system allowing students to build their courses and programs around their life commitments and timing.

Encourage a Diversity in Learning Styles and Delivery Systems
Students are encouraged to evaluate their learning styles, their gifts and graces, their personality profiles, as well as understand their dreams, their fears, phobias and their individual ‘withholds’, while developing their personal and professional skills.

Focus on Self-Healing, Self-Empowerment and Self-Sufficiency
Personal and professional healing and growth are emphasized, with the goal being to prepare individuals to move toward gainful employment or entrepreneurship, achieving spiritual and financial stability.

Entrepreneurship - We Support You Doing Your Dream
The college is committed to advancing the holistic healthcare movement by providing on-going support to those individuals who are committed to owning and growing their own private practices or businesses.

Our students receive the benefits of:

• Flexible programs of studies
• Part-time or full-time classes
• Small, intimate classes
• World-class faculty and instructors with professional experience
• Financial aid to those who qualify
• Career planning and assistance for students and graduates

An Award-Winning School

SWIHA takes pride in the many innovative practices we institute throughout our organization. In recognition of many of these BEST practices we have become an award-winning school. In 2005-2006 we were awarded Best School of the Year by the Arizona Private School Association. Over the past several years we have also been awarded with Best Student Placement, Best Student Organization, Best Community Student Practice, and Best Wild Card Practice. Most recently we were listed as one of the "Top 50 Companies to Watch" by the ASBA and Comerica Bank of Arizona.

See our Awards Page for more Information

SWIHA is more than an education