Program Overview

The mission of the MA in psychology with an emphasis in counseling psychology program is to provide its participants with the knowledge and skills necessary to become competent in counseling psychology through academic and experiential learning. The program aims at educating future psychologists who have sound knowledge of the theory and practice of counseling psychology, who are competent consumers and creative producers of social science research, who are competent in counseling practice, and who are ethical and sensitive to the cultures, values and worlds of various clients.

Viewing research and practice as interdependent and mutually supportive, the MA in psychology with an emphasis in counseling psychology program is based on the scientist-practitioner training model. The program is committed to both (1) preparing counseling psychologists for advanced doctoral studies in psychology and (2) providing training and experience that prepare students for practice. Its goal is to train psychologists who have a sound knowledge of the bases of counseling and psychotherapy. Adopting a multicultural perspective, the program also emphasizes the importance of multicultural competence in both research and practice.

Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of the program, students will be able to:

• Explain the main approaches to counseling and psychotherapy and the role of the therapeutic relationship.
• Describe important theories of human development and examine their significance to counseling psychology.
• Discuss the major categories of psychological disorders and use this knowledge to assess and diagnose psychopathology.
• Describe the mechanisms of action for a variety of psychopharmacological agents and evaluate the role of psychopharmacology in counseling psychology.
• Describe the importance of professional ethics and demonstrate how ethical standards and legal requirements are relevant to the practice of counseling and psychotherapy.
• Administer and interpret various widely-used psychological tests.
• Construct the appropriate research design, collect data and implement the necessary statistical techniques to answer research questions relevant to counseling psychology which add to the discipline.
• Demonstrate practical counseling skills that can be applied to individuals and groups to address a broad range of issues and settings.
• Integrate theory, experience, behavioral observation and analysis to systematically enhance counseling knowledge and skills.
• Evaluate the appropriateness of various counseling approaches to the different cultures, values and world-views of various clients and thereby choose appropriate approaches.