The Master’s Program in Counseling Psychology is a counselor training program administered by The Graduate School and housed in The Family Institute, Center for Applied Psychological & Family Studies.  The Standard Two-Year Curriculum is designed for those students who have a background in psychology coupled with relevant clinical experience. An alternative Three-Year Curriculum, called Two-Plus is available for qualified students with minimal to no background in psychology who are shifting to counseling from other careers and/or academic majors. Both the Standard Curriculum and the Two-Plus Curriculum satisfy the requirements for licensure as a Clinical Professional Counselor in Illinois; every effort is made to satisfy counselor licensure curricular requirements in other states.

 

The program leads to a terminal Master’s degree with specializations in Psychological Counseling, Career Counseling, Human Services in the Corporate Sector, and Child Assessment and Intervention. Students are prepared for clinical positions in mental health including, but not limited to hospitals, community mental health centers, specialized social service agencies, academic and educational settings such as college/university counseling services, employee assistance programs, and government agencies, corporate settings and business consulting firms. Graduates are also competitive for quality Counseling or Clinical Psychology Ph.D. or Psy.D. programs.  

 

Intensive supervised clinical training, and the rigorous and ongoing integration of theoretical knowledge and applied practice, are hallmarks of the program. The program continually screens and evaluates clinical training settings throughout the greater Chicago area, and selects only high quality settings for students’ clinical placements. In addition, the selection of courses and training settings is customized to meet each student’s needs and interests to the fullest extent possible within the parameters of the basic requirements.

 

The faculty represents diverse backgrounds and scholarly interests, and all are strongly committed to a life-course developmental perspective and to a personality and social systems approach to the study of human behavior, psychopathology and the adaptational aspects of individuals, groups, families and organizational systems. The courses are distributed across 3 major foci or content areas: 1) Theoretical Foundations/Individual & Social Bases of Behavior, 2) Research and 3) Clinical Intervention and Assessment. Included in the Clinical Intervention and Assessment area are required field placements. Beyond the program curriculum, students have the opportunity to take courses in other Northwestern University departments. 

 

Twenty-five students typically enter the program each year, including some with undergraduate majors in psychology and others from an array of different academic and professional backgrounds. Students in the Standard Two-Year Curriculum must enroll on a full-time basis (register for at least three courses every quarter) and complete the program in two years. Students in the Three-Year, Two-Plus Curriculum must enroll on a full-time basis for the first two years and then enroll part-time (register for at least one course every quarter) in the third year. Students are not expected to register for courses during Summer Quarter but may do so when suitable courses are offered.  Fall matriculation is mandatory and mid-year matriculation is not an option.

 

To earn the Master of Arts degree, students must satisfactorily complete the Master’s Comprehensive Examination by the Spring Quarter of the final year of the program. Students in the Master’s program are strongly encouraged to become members of appropriate professional organizations such as the American Counseling Association, the American Psychological Association, the Illinois Counseling Association and the Illinois Psychological Association, and to submit and present scholarly papers at regional and national conferences sponsored by these professional organizations.

 

The program endorses and abides by ethical standards of service delivery and research established by the American Psychological Association, the American Counseling Association and Northwestern University, and rules of ethical conduct and practice prescribed by the State of Illinois. In accordance with these ethical standards, students are not permitted to engage in the independent practice of psychology or counseling.  Information on professional ethics is distributed to and reviewed with each incoming class on an annual basis, and reiterated in the program’s courses and seminars.