夏威夷大学希罗分校

Program Description

Counseling Psychology as a psychological specialty aims at facilitating personal and interpersonal functioning across the life span with a focus on emotional, social, vocational, educational, health-related, developmental, and organizational concerns. Through the integration of theory, research, and practice, and with sensitivity to multicultural issues, this specialty encompasses a broad range of practices that help people improve their well-being, alleviate distress and maladjustment, resolve crises, and increase their ability to live more highly functioning lives. Counseling psychology is unique in its attention both to normal developmental issues and to problems associated with physical, emotional, and mental disorders. (Counseling Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association)

Mission

The mission of the Master of Arts program in counseling psychology is to provide multicultural, student-centered, graduate training in counseling psychology. The program is designed to train students to become knowledgeable, skillful, ethical counselors who will be able to help people in need of professional counseling services. For students who may wish to pursue a doctoral degree in psychology later, the program provides training in advanced statistics and research methodology. It also offers opportunities for students to gain research experience by participating in ongoing projects and/or by initiating their own research projects or a Master’s Thesis. The program assigns a high priority to meeting the educational and personal needs of its students and is based on a scientist-practitioner model, with an emphasis on empirical research and evidence-based practices.

Program Goals

• To provide students with the knowledge and skills to counsel clients from different ethnic, socio-economic, and educational backgrounds;
• To provide students with a broad understanding of general counseling theory and practice, within a scientist-practitioner framework;
• To provide students with the knowledge of the social, psychological, health, and economic problems that people of Hawaiʻi face, along with the professional skills to help people cope with and manage these problems in the future;
• To offer research training opportunities to students who are interested in pursuing a doctoral degree in counseling psychology or a related field.

Student Learning Outcomes

Graduates from the program will be able to:

• Provide mental health counseling to clients/patients from different ethnic, socio-economic, and educational backgrounds;
• Understand general counseling theory and practice, within a scientist-practitioner framework;
• Understand the social, psychological, health, and economic problems that residents of Hawaii face, along with the professional skills to help people cope with and manage these problems in the future;
• Obtain licensure in mental health counseling in the state of Hawaii and many other states in the US.