Program Department Chair: Dr. Samuel Bore, Email: Samuel.Bore@untdallas.edu

Clinical Mental Health Counseling

The Counseling Program offers a (MS) degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. This 60-hour program prepares graduates to counsel in clinical mental health settings such as mental health centers, private counseling agencies, drug abuse treatment centers, centers for counseling older adults, child counseling clinics, family counseling centers, pastoral counseling settings, private practice, and business and industry. Students completing the entire sequence of course work will meet the educational requirements for the Texas State License in Professional Counseling. Students who wish to become licensed professional counselors in Texas are required to have specified supervised experiences. To obtain a License in Professional Counseling, the State of Texas stipulates additional requirements such as passing the national counseling exam and obtaining 3,000 clock hours of supervised clinical experience after the master’s degree has been obtained. Consult the Texas Department of Health website for details at https://www.bhec.texas.gov/.

Clinical Mental Health Counseling with a concentration in School Counseling

The Counseling Program offers a (MS) Clinical Mental Health Counseling degree with a School Counseling Sub-plan. This 63-hour program prepares graduates to counsel in clinical mental health settings such as mental health centers, private counseling agencies, drug abuse treatment centers, centers for counseling older adults, child counseling clinics, family counseling centers, pastoral counseling settings, private practice, business and industry, and schools. Students completing the entire sequence of coursework will meet the educational requirements for the Texas State License in Professional Counseling and Texas Education Agency for School Counseling Certification. Students who wish to become licensed professional counselors in Texas must have specified supervised experiences, and students who wish to be certified school counselors must take the TExES School Counselor certification exam. To obtain a License in Professional Counseling, the State of Texas stipulates additional requirements such as passing the national counseling exam and obtaining 3,000 clock hours of supervised clinical experience after the master’s degree has been obtained. Consult the Texas Department of Health website for details at https://www.bhec.texas.gov/.

Program Requirements

The MS degree requires a minimum of 60 semester hours, including completion of all MS requirements and a passing score on the written comprehensive examination administered during student enrollment in COUN 5720  or COUN 5721. All degree programs must be planned in consultation with the student’s advisor, and students must earn grades of A or B on all degree plan course work. Students are required to file a degree plan during their first term/semester of graduate study. The master’s degree program requires an internship, COUN 5720 /COUN 5721, in lieu of a thesis. The internship should be the last enrollment in the master’s program. Placement for the internship is selected in cooperation with the supervisor and must be approved by the program.

The master’s comprehensive examination will be the national Counselor Preparation Comprehensive Examination (CPCE), a service of the Center for Credentialing Education (an affiliate of the National Board for Certified Counselors). The CPCE covers the following 8 areas: 1) Human Growth and Development; 2) Social and Cultural Foundations; 3) Helping Relationships; 4) Group Work; 5) Career and Lifestyle Development; 6) Appraisal; 7) Research and Program Evaluation; and 8) Professional Orientation and Ethics. 

To prepare for the CPCE exam, students need to study the same way they would for the National Counselor Exam (NCE) sponsored by the National Board for Certified Counselors (see NBCC website for a list of study guides for NCE examination).  

At the end of the first field internship, students can take the Computer Based exam online by registering through this link: https://www.cce-global.org/assessmentsandexaminations/cpce.