Division of Corporate, Continuing, and Distance Education at UMass Boston
CCDE | Degree Programs | Counseling
 

Master of Science in Mental Health

All Courses

COUNSL601 Research and Evaluation
Credits: 3 Lect Hrs, 3 Credits
Course Description: This course examines several research models and strategies with respect to their various rationales and methodologies. Relevant statistical topics are introduced conceptually, especially as they are applied in research about specific academic settings.
COUNSL604 Foundations of Mental Health Counseling
Credits: 3 Lect Hrs, 3 Credits
Course Description: The intent of this course is to provide students with basic information on the principles and practices of mental health counseling. Topics include the history and philosophy of mental health counseling, professional identity, the roles of the mental health counselor, professional ethics, managed care, various contexts of practice and organizational structures, mandated clients, crisis intervention services, prevention, consultation, and an understanding of how diversity influences the practice of mental health counseling. Particular attention is given to the practice of mental health counseling in a range of such urban settings as homeless shelters and outpatient centers.
COUNSL605 Vocational, Educational, and Psychological Assessment
Credits: 3 Lect Hrs, 3 Credits
Course Description: A survey of standardized tests used in assessing aptitudes, interests, and personality traits. The course covers technical and methodological principles and social, ethical, and legal implications of psychological testing.
COUNSL606 Ethical Standards and Professional Practices
Credits: 3 Lect Hrs, 3 Credits
Course Description: The purpose of this course is to create an awareness among counselors-in-training of their contribution in the therapeutic process and helping relationship. Topics include foundations for an ethical perspective; models for ethical decision making; ethical codes of professional organizations; client rights and counselor responsibilities; ethical concerns in multicultural counseling and with special client populations; ethical issues in specific modalities (i.e., group, marriage and family counseling).
COUNSL608 Abnormal Psychology
Credits: 3 Lect Hrs, 3 Credits
Course Description: A comprehensive view of abnormal behavior in modern times. The course makes use of the revised DSM III classification systems of mental disorders and examines patterns of abnormal behavior including neuroses, psychosomatic conditions, psychosis including affective disorders, schizophrenias, abnormal behaviors of childhood and adolescence, sexual dysfunctions, and drug abuse. Brief coverage is also given to therapeutic treatments and their effectiveness.
COUNSL613 Vocational Development and Career Information
Credits: 3 Lect Hrs, 3 Credits
Course Description: The vocational development component of the course concentrates on the theories of Roe, Holland, Ginzberg, Super, and Tiedeman. The career information component, a major emphasis, directs the student to locate and use sources of educational–vocational information. These sources will include but not be limited to the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, the Occupational Outlook Handbook, the Guide to Occupational Exploration, information on local labor markets and on military careers, occupation–education information, college and vocational school guides and catalogues.
COUNSL614 Counseling Theory and Practice I
Credits: 3 Lect Hrs, 3 Credits
Course Description: The purpose of this course is to provide grounding in the commonalities of counseling techniques and practice in the use of various techniques. The course covers the essentials of interviewing, note taking, and report writing, and the role of diagnosis. Tapes and role playing are required.
COUNSL615 Counseling Theory and Practice II
Credits: 3 Lect Hrs, 3 Credits
Course Description: This course is an extension of Counseling Theory and Practice I. Major theoretical approaches (dynamic, humanistic, behavioral) are considered. The course also involves the exploration of some non–traditional approaches, and the use of tape recordings, films, written records of interviews, and role playing.
Prerequisite: COUNSL 614.
COUNSL616 Group Counseling and Group Dynamics
Credits: 3 Lect Hrs, 3 Credits
Course Description: An introduction to group dynamics which uses the group process of the class to provide experience of group membership and data for interpretation. Participation as a group member is required. Readings and lectures build a cognitive base for evaluating the experiential learning.
Prerequisite: COUNSL 615.
COUNSL620 Clinical Application of Human Development
Credits: 3 Lect Hrs, 3 Credits
Course Description: This course provides students with a comprehensive view of life span development from childhood through adulthood from several perspectives:
  1. the interaction of age with such factors as gender, cultural background, disabilities, and other significant issues which may be encountered at particular stages of life;
  2. how individuals at specific stages of cognitive development process information and experience;
  3. a structural approach to ego development; and
  4. a psychoanalytic concept of self psychology.
COUNSL622 Family Therapy Theories
Credits: 3 Lect Hrs, 3 Credits
Course Description: This course examines theories of family dysfunction and treatment from a systems perspective including the dynamics of family interactions, development tasks of the family life cycle, communication and structural theory, systems inventories, and family interviewing skills training.
Prerequisite: COUNSL 615.
COUNSL626 Collaborative Consultation and Larger Systems
Credits: 3 Lect Hrs, 3 Credits
Course Description: How do individuals and families interface with larger systems, and how do therapists intervene collaboratively? How do larger systems structure the lives of individuals and families? Relationally-trained practitioners are attempting to answer these questions through collaborative and interdisciplinary, team-focused projects in mental health, education, the law, and business, among other fields. Similarly, scholars and researchers are developing specific culturally responsive models: outreach family therapy, collaborative health care, multi-systemic school interventions, social-justice-oriented and spiritual approaches, organizational coaching, and consulting, among others. This course explores these developments and aims at developing a clinical and consulting knowledge that contributes to families, organizations, and communities within a collaborative and social-justice-oriented vision.
Prerequisite: COUNSL 622 or Permission of Instructor
COUNSL653 Perspectives in Cross-Cultural Counseling
Credits: 3 Lect Hrs, 3 Credits
Course Description: This course addresses the role of culture in counseling and psychology by looking both at history and at current issues. Discussions use an interdisciplinary framework to approach the question of counseling in a multicultural society. The course seeks to contribute to both the personal and the professional development of its participants.
Prerequisites: COUNSL 614 and 615 or 617.
COUNSL664 Child Abuse and Neglect
Credits: 3 Lect Hrs, 3 Credits
Course Description: This course addresses the growing problem of child abuse and neglect in American society, exploring the psychodynamic and sociocultural factors that contribute to child abuse. Emphasis is given to prevention, intervention, treatment, and the legal aspects of abuse and neglect.
COUNSL670 Substance Abuse in Modern Society
Credits: 3 Lect Hrs, 3 Credits
Course Description: This course surveys the broader problems caused by substance abuse in modern society, both presenting and analyzing data. Part of the course is devoted to a study of the physiological consequences of substance abuse. Consideration is also given to the family of the substance abuser, to various treatment modalities, and to the relationship between the criminal justice system and substance abuse rehabilitation.
COUNSL688 Practicum in Mental Health Counseling
Credits: 3 Sem Hrs, 3 Credits
Course Description: The track requires a 100 hour practicum in approved placement sites. In addition, students will attend an online seminar as well as participate in online chats in which their practicum experiences are examined in relation to current issues of concern in the field.
COUNSL698 Internship
Credits: 3 Sem Hrs, 6 Credits
Course Description: A 900-hour internship, divided evenly between two semesters, is also required. It will consist of supervised field experiences in schools. Students will also attend an online seminar as well as participate in online chats in which their internship experiences are examined in relation to current issues of concern in the field. Students will also be expected to provide sample audio/videotapes of counseling sessions.
Prerequisites: COUNSL 605, 607, 608, 614, and 615.

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