Master of Arts In Clinical Mental Health Counseling

Provide Professional Help for Life's Challenges

As a mental health counselor, you’ll help individuals, groups, and families overcome challenges by providing them emotional and psychological support and assist them in improving their well-being.

As part of our innovative M.A. program in clinical mental health counseling, you'll study theories and skills related to mental health, substance use, and trauma interventions and learn how to apply them to connect with individuals and groups from diverse backgrounds.

Our 60-credit program is designed to meet the program requirements to be a Connecticut Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC). You will gain extensive fieldwork experience through counseling practicum opportunities and internships that match your interests and professional goals while developing the skills and knowledge to enhance and enrich individuals, families, groups and communities.

As part of our program, you can also supplement your education with the unique opportunity to pursue a concentration in forensic mental health or community development.

• Program Mission

  The Clinical Mental Health Counseling (CMHC) Program at the University of New Haven prepares students to be effective and competent counselors in a dynamic profession. A central foundation of the CMHC Program mission is to prepare counselors to work in an increasingly diverse society and a broad range of practice settings. This includes an emphasis on developing the skills, knowledge, and awareness necessary to work with individuals from diverse backgrounds and requires an understanding and integration of principles of advocacy and social justice. Furthermore, the program emphasizes the integration of ethical and legal principles as well as the development of professional leadership skills. Steeped in the University of New Haven mission and tradition, the CMHC program motivates and transforms students to embrace the value of high-impact, collaborative, and discovery-based learning.

• Program Objectives
  1. Dispositions
     From admission through exit CMHC students will demonstrate the attitudes, characteristics, and behaviors defined by the program as characteristic of exemplar counseling professionals.
  2. Ethical Practice
     CMHC Students will demonstrate the capacity to practice counseling from a strong foundational understanding of ethical and legal issues, intentionally integrating counseling ethical practices into day-to-day professional activities.
  3. Social & Cultural Diversity
     In keeping with the American Counseling Association multicultural competencies, CMHC students will develop self-awareness, knowledge, and skills to prepare them to be contemporary, relevant, and culturally informed practitioners in clinical settings.
  4. Human Growth & Development
     CMHC students will demonstrate knowledge of lifespan development, systemic and environmental factors that affect human development, functioning, and behavior and the capacity to integrate knowledge of developmental theory into practice.
  5. Career Development
     CMHC students will demonstrate competence in understanding the world of work and the relationship between mental health and life roles such as work, school, and home.
  6. Counseling & Helping Relationships
     CMHC students will gain an understanding of the theories and research related to helping relationships and will develop the skills to apply their knowledge in professional, therapeutic relationships.
  7. Group Counseling & Group Work
     CMHC students will demonstrate knowledge of group process dynamics, group counseling, and group work, including group theories, stages of group, leadership styles, and therapeutic factors.
  8. Assessment & Testing
     CMHC students will demonstrate a broad understanding of validity and reliability of assessments, the selection and use of assessment tools, client assessment and diagnosis, trauma assessment, and the assessment of self-inflicted harm and danger to others.
  9. Research & Program Evaluation
     CMHC students will demonstrate the capacity to select, analyze, and apply research to inform practice, including evidence-based practices and theory-based interventions appropriate to their designated setting and personal theoretical orientation.
  10. Clinical Mental Health Counseling
      CMHC students will demonstrate an understanding of foundational knowledge (such as psychological testing), contextual factors (such as trauma, co-occurring disorders, poverty, and culture), and the demonstration of competence in clinical mental health fieldwork.