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UW-Madison > School of Education > Counseling Psychology

Prospective Students

The Department of Counseling Psychology offers two degree programs, a Master's (M.S.) program in Counseling and a Doctoral (Ph.D.) program in Counseling Psychology.  For information on either program and application procedures, please see the sidebar to the left.

 

The Master's program in Counseling is a terminal Masters of Science (M.S.) degree which requires successful completion of 48 graduate credits (current students usually do two years of full-time study plus one summer semester).   Master's students in our program complete a master's paper/thesis, and must demonstrate competencies in the following areas:

  • Case Conceptualization,
  • Presentation
  • Counseling Microskills
  • Multi-Cultural Counseling
  • Consultation Skills,
  • Professional Behavior and Ethics,
  • AODA Counseling
  • Information Systems (Computing and Internet Technology use.)

Master's students elect to specialize in School Counseling or Community/College Counseling. (Community/College Counseling includes counseling centers in higher education setting and higher education-Student Personnel/Student Affairs settings).

 

The Doctoral program in Counseling Psychology is a Ph.D. degree accredited by the American Psychological Association and is designed to foster competence in clinical practice, research, and instruction. The theoretical orientation of the program is best described as eclectic, with many different theoretical approaches actively used by students and faculty in the department.  The length of the program for students entering with a Master's in the counseling field is about five years (63 total semester credits minimum).  Generally, this equates to three years (if full time) of coursework plus one year of internship and one year typically spent on dissertation.

Doctoral students in the program must demonstrate competencies in the following areas:

  • Individual intervention and psychotherapy.
  • Group facilitation and intervention.
  • Supervision and professional training.
  • Multicultural perspectives and culturally-sensitive therapy interventions.
  • Professional Consultation.
  • Empirical methods, statistics and research tools.
  • Vocational Psychology.

Doctoral students complete a doctoral minor during their training, demonstrating a substantive knowledge of an outside specialty.  The minor can be fully encompassed in a separate academic department or "distributed" across departments, creating a specialized area of expertise for the student.  Doctoral minors are flexible and can be negotiated with the student's advisor and the training director to be tailored to a student's areas of interest.  Some doctoral minors currently being pursued in the department include:

  • Psychological Assessment
  • Educational Psychology
  • Statistics
  • Latino/Latina Studies
  • Prevention Science

Students who earn their Ph.D. in the department are clinically competent and competitive psychologists in a wide variety of professional practice and academic settings.  These include academic positions in both research-oriented and non research-oriented colleges and universities and well as practice positions in community and university counseling centers, hospitals, Veterans Administration clinics, prisons, children's hospitals and many others.  Our graduates are nationally and internationally respected researchers and clinicians.