The Arica School describes itself as a complete system for human development, combining structured group exercises, meditation, breathwork and a psychological mapping of personality types called egofixations, taught through a sequence of levels culminating in what the school calls enlightenment. Ichazo presented the material as his own original synthesis rather than a direct transmission of any single older tradition, while acknowledging Sufi, Buddhist and Gurdjieffian sources as formative influences.
Ichazo is also a central figure in the modern history of the psychological Enneagram, the nine point personality typology now widely used outside any Arica context. He taught an early version of the nine personality types to his 1970 Arica students, among them Claudio Naranjo, who developed the material further and introduced it into the American therapeutic and human potential communities independently of Ichazo's own school. Ichazo maintained for the rest of his life that this popularized psychological Enneagram diverged from and oversimplified his own more comprehensive teaching, a disagreement over authorship and fidelity that the two men never fully resolved.
Among the Arica School's specific practices is Psychocalisthenics, a sequence of choreographed physical exercises Ichazo designed to synchronize breath and movement, which the school teaches as a foundational daily discipline distinct from yoga or conventional calisthenics. The school also uses structured group dialogue exercises it calls Trialogos, intended to surface and work through the egofixations of Ichazo's personality typology in real time among participants. Both remain part of the Arica Institute's ongoing curriculum.