Counseling Psychology Program
A Day in the Life of Lehigh University Counseling Psychology Master's student Eliot Hagerty
Follow Lehigh grad student Eliot Hagerty, M.Ed. Mental Health Counseling, '20 as she shares a day in her life!
Accredited by American Psychological Association (APA) and Master’s in Psychology and Counseling Accreditation Council (MPCAC).
Our Ph.D. program is accredited by the American Psychological Association (APA). Our M.Ed. in Mental Health Counseling Program is accredited by the Master’s in Psychology and Counseling Accreditation Council (MPCAC). This means we have met the rigorous criteria and standards designed by these governing boards to ensure that our programing provides a top education for students in our programs.
Training students to be effective counselors who respect the differences among cultures and are driven by a desire for social justice.
Our Counseling Psychology program seeks to prepare students as exceptional scientist-practitioner leaders who demonstrate and strive for self-awareness, knowledge, and skills undergirded by an attentiveness and responsiveness to multiculturalism and social justice.
Our Master’s programs are competency based and prepare students to function in professional roles that include three key ecological targets of intervention settings: The community, the school, and the family. Our faculty seeks to produce counselors who can conceptualize and intervene in scientifically-based preventative, developmental, and therapeutic ways to assist a broad cultural cross-section of individuals to improve their understanding, adjustment, and daily functioning across the lifespan.
The Master’s degrees in Mental Health Counseling and School Counseling prepare students to provide direct services to individuals and groups, conduct workshops, instruct classes, participate in consultation, and develop and implement prevention programs to assist in acquiring coping skills for living in a complex society. A graduate may be employed in a variety of settings such as mental health agencies, social service agencies, college counseling centers, elementary, middle and secondary schools. Additionally, a Master of Education in Mental Health Counseling, can be completed fully online.
The Master’s degree in International Counseling prepares students for the unique roles and activities of counselors in international schools and agencies. Students complete the program using a hybrid model that leads to both a certificate and/or a Master’s degree.
The Ph.D. program, which is accredited by the American Psychological Association (APA), prepares students to become effective counseling psychologists who are competent in the clinical awareness, knowledge, and skills necessary to deliver mental health services to multicultural client populations in various settings.
It is the program’s goal to produce students who can intervene effectively with individuals or groups from diverse backgrounds within the context of that individual’s culture. The professional training to which students are exposed adheres to a scientist-practitioner model and presumes competent practice that is undergirded by sound principles and models of psychological science, social justice, and transdisciplinary collaboration.
The M.Ed. in Mental Health Counseling Program is accredited by the Master’s in Psychology and Counseling Accreditation Council (MPCAC) for the period of August, 2014 through August, 2024.
Learn more about our Counseling Psychology program from our students!
Louis Rivera, Counseling Psychology, Ph.D. '20
Students and faculty present their research findings at national and international conferences such as the American Psychological Association, the Society for Psychotherapy Research, The Society for Vocational Psychology, the Asian American Psychological Association, the Multicultural Summit, the Winter Roundtable at Teacher's College, the Diversity Challenge, and other professional venues.
Many of our students have published with faculty members in journals such as: Journal of Counseling Psychology, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Journal of Marital & Family Therapy, Psychotherapy Research, American Journal of Public Health, American Journal of Community Psychology, The Counseling Psychologist, Cultural and Ethnic Minority Psychology, Journal of Career Assessment, Architectural Science Review, and the Journal of Homosexuality.
An innovative model for counseling research and practice, the Community Voices Clinic (CVC), is a school based mental health clinic located at Broughal Middle and Donegan Elementary Schools provides mental health services to uninsured and underinsured families and communities in Southside Bethlehem. The clinic serves as a training site for master's and doctoral level counseling students in the provision of mental health counseling and supervision within a community school model. For further information please contact Dr. Susan Woodhouse, CVC Director at woodhouse@lehigh.edu.
Students and faculty are active in local communities in doing research on maternal child attachment and emotional regulation and in interventions such as Midnight Basketball working with inner city adolescents and at the Lincoln Leadership Academy in Allentown working on career development. In addition, the CP program runs a summer institute on international counseling and conducts training of counselors globally.
Optional Practical Training (OPT) lets eligible F-1 students work in their field of study in the United States for 12 to 36 months after completing their program. Most students studying on F-1 visas become eligible for 12 months of Optional Practical Training (OPT) off-campus work authorization. F-1 students with a degree in a STEM field—science, technology, engineering or math—may be eligible for a 24-month extension of their 12 months of OPT. Thus, students with an F-1 visa in our program may be eligible for the STEM OPT extension, which allows for up to a total of 36 months of Optional Practical Training off-campus work authorization. For more information on who is eligible to apply for this extension visit Lehigh’s Office of International Students and Scholars: STEM OPT Extension (https://global.lehigh.edu/
Announcement
Accredited by APA and MPCAC
Our Ph.D. program is accredited by the American Psychological Association (APA). Our M.Ed. in Mental Health Counseling Program is accredited by the Master’s in Psychology and Counseling Accreditation Council (MPCAC). This means we have met the rigorous criteria and standards designed by these governing boards to ensure that our programing provides a top education for students in our programs.
