Mental Health Counselor

Mental Health Counseling Curriculum

The Mental Health Counseling Major is designed to train mental health professionals who can provide culturally relevant counseling, assessment, and consultative interventions in public and private mental health care systems. The acquisition of knowledge and development of skills to diagnose and treat disorders and promote optimal mental health are primary training goals. Requirements for this degree include 54 academic credits and 10 Practicum credits, a cumulative grade point average of 3.00 and the successful completion of the comprehensive examination.

Foundation Courses

Ethical, Legal, and Professional Conduct for Counselors

This course covers standards for professional conduct in counseling. It considers ethical and legal decisions that mental health and school counselors must make. Case examples, current federal and state laws/statutes, ethical codes, and standards on assessment, diagnosis, and placement data will be discussed in relation to counseling a variety of culturally diverse populations in multiple settings

Cross Cultural Counseling

This course addresses cultural diversity and its implications for counseling. It considers the psychological impact of factors such as gender, race, ethnicity and culture, religious preference, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, and physical disability in a variety of counseling and educational settings. Finally, it reviews counseling issues and strategies for diverse clients.

Advanced Abnormal Psychology

To do therapy we must understand what is "normal" and what is not. To be able to make that distinction we must have some basic skills. We must be able to: observe behavior carefully and objectively, observing patterns in behaviors; understand the behavior in context for that individual, setting and culture; identify developmental and cultural norms and compare their behavior to these; compare the behavior with some overarching definition of mental health. We will approach the goals described above using the diagnostic system developed by the American Psychiatric Association, the DSM-IV, learning both the strategies they use to categorize patterns of abnormal behavior as well as what those characteristic patterns are.

Counseling Theories & Practice

This course surveys the fields of psychotherapy and counseling. It reviews the various theories and techniques of counseling that are consistent with current professional research and practice in the fields of mental health and school counseling.

Theories of Personality

The opportunity to explore description, dynamics and theories of the development of personality is provided in this course. Adler, Sullivan, Freud, Allport, Erikson, etc. among others will be surveyed.

Research Methodology and Program Evaluation

This course seeks to prepare mental health and school counselors to be informed consumers of research and evaluation. It covers basic statistics, research designs, and program evaluation within the counseling and educational fields. It provides experience in developing accountability measures and in reading research and evaluating reports applicable to multicultural populations.

Life Span Psychology

In this course will examine the patterns of growth, change and stability in behavior that occur throughout the entire lifespan since birth. It will cover the multidisciplinary approaches to human development within the behavioral and social sciences. Explores theories of human development and the process of individual change over time, that occurs in social, cultural and historical contexts. Examines central theories of transformation and development to gain an understanding of human behavior, the environmental factors that affect both normal and abnormal behavior, and the systems (e.g., school, family, community) that interact to affect an individual’s development.

Substance Abuse

This course covers the evolutionary process of addiction, and its effects at each stage of the process, the definition and the epidemic outbreak of alcoholism and drug addiction. Students will learn how addiction is evaluated and treated emphasizing on family systems. Lecture, textbooks, and written assignments will be utilized.

Theology

In this course the student will be exposed to the great doctrines of the Christian Faith, such as Soteriology, Christology, Pneumatology, etc. Theology as an academic discipline becomes the rational study of Christian teachings, therefore with this course the student will attain a broad vision of what the Christian faith believes. This is a mandatory course for all students.

Area of Concentration 

Mental Health Care Systems

This course examines the level of met and unmet need for mental health care and extent and predictors of mental health treatment-seeking in community settings. Addresses the issues of disparities in access to, and the use of, mental health services; mental illness stigma and attitudes towards mental health treatment seeking; the impact of public campaigns to reduce stigma and enhance treatment seeking. Also introduces students to trends in service delivery system in the US.

Career Development and Assessment

Explores the fundamentals of selecting, administering, interpreting, and presenting tests as a component of the diagnostic and counseling process. Includes discussions of the principles of measurement; an examination of intelligence, career, personality and other test instruments; rationale for test selection; guidelines for test administration; and ethical use of appraisal in decision making and treatment planning.

Group Counseling

This course addresses group theory and practice in multiple settings with a variety of diverse populations and age groups. Major themes include group dynamics, group process, and group states for mental health and school counselors.

Family Therapy: Theory and Practice

This course covers the understanding of how the emotional system operates in a family system through the use of genograms. The student will work his own genogram to study his/her own patterns of behavior, and how they relate to those of his/her multigenerational family, where it will reveal new and more effective options for solving problems and for changing responses to the automatic role he/she is expected to play.

Individual Assessment and Appraisal

Designed to familiarize students with contemporary approaches to appraisal and intervention in mental health practice, and to introduce relevant “cutting edge” trends in research. Students will learn a number of contrasting diagnostic paradigms, study a range of clinical problems and disorders, and a diversity of intervention options. Students will develop further understandings of the DSM-IV, multicultural appropriate assessment instruments, intervention alternatives, and current research trends

Human Sexuality and Sexual Dysfunctions

This is a course on Human Sexuality that reviews basic anatomy, sexual function and response, and challenges and disorders of sexual function. Diagnostic formulations and treatments for the disorders that clinicians are most likely to encounter in clinical practice are also presented. Finally, challenges and complexities of sexuality within special populations are reviewed.

Counseling in Community Settings

Provides an introduction to the counseling profession with an emphasis on the counselor’s role in community agencies and facilities. Examines the responsibilities of the community counselor from a historical, theoretical and practical point of view. Explores the helping relationship, the roles of the community counselor, and the professional practice issues related to providing community counseling services, historically and today. Focus is placed on the fundamental elements of basic listening and communication skills that serve as the building blocks for more advanced counseling skills.

Clinical Practicum

Professional Identity and Pre-Practicum Skills

Survey course that introduces the student to the field of Mental Helath counseling Therapy and to prepare students for eventual placement in fieldwork sites.  Discussions of the paperwork required for the licensing board, the Florida State Board.  Educational requirements will include guest speakers who will address and demonstrate various styles of therapy, films that depict various forms of and issues within MHC, and requirements for and during placement, and acquiring skill in Clinical Diagnosis.

Marriage and Family Therapy Clinical Practicum I

First practicum concurrent with first field placement and training experience. Discussions of placement, techniques for providing therapy, increasing skill as a MHC will be included.

Marriage and Family Therapy Clinical Practicum II

Second field placement and training experience concurrent with classroom enrollment required.  Minimum of 8 hours per week required; additional as hours as placement agency requires.  Includes on-site supervision.

Mental Health Counseling Clinical Practicum III

Third field placement and training experience concurrent with classroom enrollment required.  Minimum of 8 hours per week required; additional as hours as placement agency requires.  Includes on-site supervision.