500

This class provides an overview of the field of professional counseling. By participating in the course, students will accomplish the following learning objectives: (1) students will become familiar with the nature of the profession and its relationships to other human service professions; (2) students will become broadly familiar with the major theories of counseling and the techniques and strategies associated with each theory; (3) students will identify the various work settings where professional counselors are employed, and the roles and functions of counselors in each setting; (4) students will become acquainted with the major elements of the professional counseling process, from initial assessment through evaluation of services; and (5) students will identify the major issues and problems in the field at this time. (6) Students will also be exposed to multicultural counseling content.

The goal of this course is to provide mental health counseling students with the clinical and technical foundation needed to accurately conduct assessments, make diagnoses, provide case conceptualizations, and determine treatment recommendations in a professional setting. Using the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, as our guide, we will explore not only the diagnostic criteria for each disorder, but also the biological, social, cultural, and environmental factors that contribute to its development and expression. This course will incorporate first person narratives, scholarly articles, writings from popular publications, and video to present a broad picture of the current theory and understanding of mental illness. We will also assess and critique the tools and strategies used in the differential diagnosis process, to better understand the ways that clinicians can account for cultural, racial, and gender bias in those methods, with the goal of developing the capacity to overcome these barriers to a holistic understanding of the person.

This course prepares students to learn about the prevalence of different types of trauma. This course will equip students with the diagnostic criteria for trauma across populations and the fundamental aspects of trauma informed care as a best practice philosophy to counseling and service provision. This course will also ensure that students complete the online Psychological First Aid course to build capacity around crisis management skills.

The major goal of this course is to provide students with an understanding and experience in the fundamental methods and techniques commonly employed in counseling and psychotherapy. Emphasis is placed on the counseling relationship, attending and listening skills, cognitive, affective, and behavioral counseling interventions, role-playing activities, and the concerns commonly expressed by beginning counselors.

This course focuses on current ethical and legal concerns in professional counseling. Counselors face ethical issues on an ongoing basis. The course includes ethical decision-making processes; a variety of ethical and legal critical skills necessary for the professional counselor for protection of clients, success in the work place, and professional accountability of all counselors.

This course is designed to provide an overview of substance abuse counseling and psychopharmacology for mental health counselors. Topics discussed include addiction issues, diagnosis, treatment planning and individual and group counseling strategies with diverse populations. Additionally, students will be exposed to the fundamentals of psychotropic medications. Basics of pharmacology, adverse effects, indications, and drug interactions will be discussed. Boundaries of practice and practical issues of assessment and referral will be covered.

This course explores biological, psychological, and sociocultural aspects of human development from conception through late adulthood. The primary focus of the course is on what is referred to in the literature as "normative development" that we will examine in the context of culture. This includes addressing adaptive processes in language, cognition, self-regulation, personal identity and social relationships that inform behaviors and concepts relevant to counseling and clinical practice with both children and adults. The course will be taught utilizing Blackboard functions for discussions and course documents including supplemental readings in addition to the primary text and we will meet one weekend a month over the 10 weeks of the course. We will utilize a variety of teaching methods including brief lectures, discussion boards, breakout small group work, and additional interactive formats. The basic structure of the majority of classes will include a reflected practice exercise to start class, a lecture and slide presentation, and in-class exercises applying developmental concepts to clinical cases.

This course expands on the Counseling Theories course by providing a further evaluation of the theories, techniques, and strategies especially helpful when working with school aged populations and their families. The course explores counseling issues and provides specific techniques and strategies with emphasis on supervised practice sessions. Discussions include methods for designing and evaluating treatment plans and the application of ethical standards and legal requirements with young people.

The major goal of this course is to provide students with the basic concepts of statistics including central tendencies, standard scores, and variability and discuss how they relate to clinical practice. Students will practice administering comprehensive assessment interventions. Moreover, this class reinforces active listening skills and challenges students to reflect on their own judgments and biases - conscious and unconscious. Different types of tests will be discussed along the legal and ethical guidelines for test administration.