The Master of Science (MS) degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, offered by the , is designed to provide the student with both theoretical and practical training in the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of a wide variety of individual (adult and children), couples’, and family mental health problems, and to prepare the student to work in private or public service agencies, independent practice, community mental health centers, or hospitals. The required academic course work and supervised fieldwork of 60 semester units meets the course work requirements for the California State Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT) license and most of the requirements for the Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (LPCC) license (see www.bbs.ca.gov for requirements). An additional 2500-3000 hours of acceptable supervised experience is required for admission to the state MFT or LPCC licensing examination.

Admission Requirements

To be eligible for admission into the Clinical Mental Health Counseling program, you must:

1. Meet all of the University graduate .
2. Have a baccalaureate degree (BA or BS) in Psychology OR any baccalaureate degree (BA or BS) and a minimum of 30 semester units (45 quarter units) in Psychology.
3. Have taken the REQUIRED six courses in psychology from the list provided below. These are to be included in the minimum 30 semester units (10 semester courses).
4. Have a minimum GPA of 3.0 in all Psychology coursework AND a minimum of 3.0 the last 2 years of academic work attempted (60 semester or 90 quarter units).
5. Provide evidence of a minimum of 100 hours of paid or volunteer applied clinical experience working with persons in a counseling/helping capacity (e.g., volunteer in home for children with developmental, emotional, and/or behavioral disorders, provide counseling on a suicide and crisis telephone hotline).
6. Provide three letters of recommendation. One reference MUST be from a clinical supervisor and another MUST come from a professor or instructor who can comment on the applicant’s academic work. Additional references may come from former instructors and from supervisors of previous work in volunteer placements in the clinical field.

Undergraduate Courses in Psychology Required for Admission

1. General or Introduction to Psychology (SJSU code )
2. Elementary Statistics (SJSU code )
3. Introduction to Research Methods (SJSU code  or  or )
4. Psychobiology or equivalent (SJSU code )

Each of the above four (1-4) may be taken at the community college or university level and may be lower-division courses.

5. Upper-division course in Abnormal Psychology (SJSU code )
6. Upper-division course in Theory and Methods of Counseling, or Clinical Psychology (SJSU code , or )

Degree Requirements

General university requirements and procedures for completing the Master of Science degree are described in the . In addition to these, the following departmental requirements must be fulfilled.

1. The student must complete a total of 60 units in clinical psychology as specified in the table below.
2. Candidates must demonstrate satisfactory performance on one or more final comprehensive examinations. These examinations are both written and oral.
3. The University requires that all graduate students complete the  as a condition for . For graduate courses that meet the GWAR, please refer to the Graduate Admissions and Program Evaluations website at www.sjsu.edu/gape.

Graduation Writing Assessment Requirement

At SJSU, students must pass the .