Counseling Psychology

doctoral program

Overview of Mission
The Counseling Psychology doctoral program at Boston College seeks to prepare the next generation of leaders in psychology, generally, and counseling psychology, specifically. The program emphasizes the scientist-practitioner training model emphasizing a developmental-contextual perspective with a commitment to social justice, multicultural education, and community-based practice. The doctoral program prepares students for positions as counseling psychologists, who use their scientific and clinical skills in an array of settings encompassing mental health organizations, educational institutions, academia, public policy agencies, and various other occupational and community contexts.

Using developmental and social justice frameworks, the doctoral program in counseling psychology helps students to acquire the following knowledge and competencies:

Acquire foundational knowledge of the field on psychology
Comprehend and critically analyze current literature in the field
Understand the major theoretical frameworks for counseling, personality, and career development
Conduct independent research and scientific inquiry
Have knowledge and competence in practice of a variety of assessment techniques
Have respect for, knowledge, and competence in clinical work and research with diverse client populations
Provide supervision, consultation, and outreach services to a broad array of client populations
Commit to the ethical and legal standards of the profession including sensitivity to individual, gender, and cultural differences
Demonstrate competencies with a variety of individual and group counseling approaches to evidence based practice in supervised practicums and internships

The Doctoral program (Ph.D.) in Counseling Psychology is accredited by the American Psychological Association (Office of Program Consultation and Accreditation, 750 First Street, NE , Washington , DC 20002; 202-336-5979).

The program is designed to qualify candidates for membership in APA and Division 17 (Counseling Psychology) and to provide the pre-doctoral educational requirements for licensure as a psychologist in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and for inclusion in the National Register of Health Care Providers. (Please note that licensure requirements in Massachusetts include an additional year of post-Doctoral supervised experience. Licensure requirements vary across states, so we encourage prospective students to review the licensing guidelines in the states that they might consider. In addition, the National Register of Health Care Providers requires post-doctoral training in order to be listed as a registered provider. We urge interested students to consult with the National Register to learn about the specific post-doctoral training requirements.)

The entering Doctoral student who has not completed all of the educational prerequisites for the M.A. in Counseling must complete them during the initial year of enrollment in the Doctoral program. Decisions regarding this aspect of the student's course work will be based on a review of the student's background by the assigned advisor and the Director of Training.

Once admitted, Doctoral students are required to complete courses in each of the following broad areas that fulfill the basic professional training standards: (Please note that the list below includes a sample of the required courses. The complete program of study for Master's admits and Direct admits can be located online.)

Professional Core (includes)
- Multicultural issues
- Counseling Theory
- Career Development
- Professional Issues in Counseling Psychology
Statistics and Research Design (includes)
- Intermediate Statistics
- General Linear Models
- Quantitative Research Design
- Design of Qualitative Research
Psychological Measurement (includes)
- Intellectual Assessment
- Projective Assessment
- Psychological Testing
Psychological Foundations (includes)
- History and Theories of Psychology
- Advanced Seminar in Psychopathology
- Biological Bases of Behavior
- Cognitive-Affective Bases of Behavior
- Social Bases of Behavior
Practicum
Pre-Doctoral Internship

The Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology typically requires a minimum of five years of full-time academic study and advanced practica, including a year of full-time internship and successful defense of a dissertation. Student entering without a Master's degree in Counseling or a related field often will need longer to complete the Ph.D. degree.

Education and Training Outcomes: A Selected Overview
Prospective applicants are encouraged to learn as much as possible about the programs that they are exploring. In order to facilitate this exploration process, we provide information below describing a selected array of education and training outcomes.

Time to Completion
The mean time of completion for program graduates is 6.44 years with the modal time for completion of 5 years. The range of time frames needed to complete the program during the 2003-2009 period is as follows:

Completed in 4 years: 2%
Completed in 5 years: 47%
Completed in 6 years: 19%
Completed in 7 years: 17%
Completed in 8 years: 2%
Completed in 9 years: 2%
Completed in 10 years: 2%
Completed in 11 years: 2%
Completed in 12 years: 4%
Completed in 14 years: 2%

Program Costs:
Graduate credits in the Lynch School of Education in 2009-2010 were $1050 per credit (see BC Tuition and Fees for list of student fees). The program enjoys substantial financial support from Boston College, as the Lynch School of Education makes available graduate assistantships and teaching fellowships to doctoral students in the Counseling Psychology program. Through these resources the program is able to commit to funding students throughout their first three years of training for 18 credits per academic year. After that period of time, students may be eligible for additional program assistantships if positions exist in our program. Typically, most fourth year students have obtained funding in our program via external grants that the faculty have obtained, undergraduate teaching, supervising Master's seminars or other assistantship opportunities on campus. Some 4th year students find support off campus (e.g., research assistantship at VA Hospital). All of these mechanisms of financial support through Boston College typically carry full tuition remission with stipends that range from $15,000 to $17,000 per year. Awards are given for one year and students must reapply on an annual basis.

Internship Placements
The Boston College Counseling Psychology program has enjoyed considerable success in having our students compete for pre-doctoral internships. A summary of student achievements in the internship application process is as follows:

For our graduates since 2003, 43 students have completed APPIC approved internships. Of these students, 38 received offers the first year they applied, yielding a 88% match rate for initial intern applicants. The other five students received internship offers the second year they applied.

During this same time, 98% percent of our students completed APA approved pre-doctoral internships, and 98% completed full-time internships.

Attrition Rate
Since 2003, three students left the program. Two were dismissed, and one left the program for personal reasons. This yields an attrition rate of 6%.

Licensure
Eighty-three percent of graduates from 2000-2007 have become licensed in the United States and/or Canada.

A PDF copy of the Counseling Psychology Doctoral Student Handbook can by downloaded here and all contents are accessible as links to the right of this page.

Contact Information
Tel: 617-552-4710

Mailing address: Campion Hall
140 Commonwealth Avenue
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467

Lynch School Office of Graduate Admission, Financial Aid, and Student Services:
Tel: 617-552-4214
Fax: 617-552-1981

Chair: Dr. M. Brinton Lykes - lykes@bc.edu
Training Director: Dr. James Mahalik - mahalik@bc.edu

Faculty Research Interests:

David Blustein: Psychology of working; work-based transitions; unemployment; school-to-work transitions; career development; relational perspectives in psychotherapy; Public policy implications of psychological research

A.J. Franklin: Psychological well-being, resilience and health of African Americans, the impact of stereotypes and invisibility upon African American males and females. Psychotherapy and counseling interventions with adolescent and adult men and families, with a specialty on men of African descent

Lisa Goodman: Institutional and community responses to intimate partner violence; the role of coercion in domestic violence; the effects of violence against underserved women, including homeless, low-income, and severely mentally ill populations; innovative models of mental health intervention for low-income women

Janet Helms: Racial identity; psychological testing and assessment; racial and cultural counseling and psychotherapy

Maureen Kenny: Adolescent-family relationships; psychosocial factors and adolescent depression; preventive interventions for promoting positive youth development

Belle Liang: Community intervention and prevention from cross-cultural and developmental perspectives (social support and mentoring in adolescence and young adulthood); trauma recovery and resiliency

Julie Paquette MacEvoy: Children’s social and emotional development, gender differences in children’s experiences of peer aggression, children’s emotional reactions to transgressions of their friendship expectations, and challenges children living in urban settings face in forming and maintaining friendships

James Mahalik: Contributions of gender socialization and social influence variables as they affect psychological and physical well-being including health behaviors

Sandra Morse: Loss and grief, women's issues, survivors of suicide

Paul Poteat: Peer group social networks and the socialization processes within peer groups that influence the prejudiced attitudes and behaviors of individuals; developmental trajectories of prejudice from early adolescence to adulthood; social norms and ideology beliefs connected to homophobic and racist attitudes and behaviors

Usha Tummala-Narra: Multicultural psychology, psychological trauma, ethnic and racial discrimination among immigrant communities, race and ethnicity in the psychotherapeutic process

Mary Walsh: Developmental conceptions of illness (including AIDS) across the life-span; psychosocial functioning of homeless mothers and children; interprofessional collaboration/integrated services in urban schools and agencies

Admission:
Goals of Doctoral Training (further information about the objectives and competencies that are stressed in the doctoral program are detailed in the Program Handbook, which is found on the right side of this webpage, beginning with the Model and Goals section (will open in new window).

The Doctoral Training Program has three main goals

Students will demonstrate the foundational knowledge essential for the scientific and professional practice of Counseling Psychology. As such, we expect our graduates to be well-equipped with a knowledge base that will allow for the implementation of the scientist-practitioner model of counseling psychology
Students will demonstrate the ability to implement competently the scientist-practitioner model within the arenas of research, psychological practice, and advocacy.
Students will demonstrate the capacity to enable the growth of the individuals, families, and systems with whom they work and the good of the community at large in both their research and practice.

Two Options for Admission: MA and Direct Admit

Doctoral applicants may hold a Master's degree in counseling or a related field; however, this is not required for admission into our program. Students with bachelor's degrees may apply directly to the program. We should note that current needs in the doctoral program tend to favor students with a MA degree. However, applicants to the doctoral program who the faculty believes may be better served by the Master's program will have their application considered for admission into the Master's program at the time of review. Please refer to the following links for the course requirements for the MA and Direct Admit option.

Admissions Criteria
The Counseling Psychology doctoral program welcomes and embraces diversity through its choice of faculty, students, research interests, and commitment to the community. The doctoral program is also interested in applicants who are dedicated to the mission of our program, in particular its social justice commitment.

In making decisions about applicants, the faculty considers the following attributes:

Grades (graduate and undergraduate)
Research experience
Experience in clinical work or or counseling-types of roles
GRE scores (verbal, quantitative; the Psychology test is not required)
Personal statement
Resume or CV
Letters of recommendation
Writing sample

Successful applicants typically demonstrate evidence of their preparation for doctoral study, commitment to the scientist-practitioner training model, and commitment to the social justice mission of the program via their academic work, curricular and extra-curricular activities, and research experience. Students who are hoping to obtain admission without a Master's degree in Counseling Psychology generally have substantive post-undergraduate experience and relevant work experience that conveys commitment to and skills in scholarship and direct services to client populations.

Prerequisite Courses
Ideally, successful applicants to the doctoral program should have completed as undergraduates or as graduate students the following courses:

MA Admits:
In order to be considered an MA admit, an applicant must have a Master's degree in Counseling or a related field that includes a 400-hour supervised counseling practicum. The Master's level prerequisite courses for the doctoral program include the classes listed below; however, students without these specific prerequisites should still apply as some of our admitted students have not completed all of these Master's level courses. (Student who have not completed these prerequisites need to complete prior to or during their doctoral studies in our program at their own expense.)

Principles and Techniques of Counseling
Introductory Statistics
Psychopathology
Psychological Testing
Group Counseling or Family Therapy

Direct Admits:
As indicated earlier, the successful direct admit candidate presents with outstanding credentials and clear evidence of preparation for doctoral study, a commitment to the scientist-practitioner model, and a focus on social justice. Successful direct admit applicants also convey a level of maturity and commitment to excellence that is hard to quantify. Our advice for talented students without a Master's degree is that if it is worthwhile to apply for a doctoral degree if that is your clear long-term goal. We often offer the option of enrolling in our Master's degree to those qualified applicants who are not admitted to the doctoral program. It is important to note, however, that all of our MA students if interested in our doctoral program when completing their MA at Boston College need to re-apply for the doctoral program. There is no guaranteed admission to the doctoral program from the MA program although approximately half of our doctoral admits usually come from our MA students.

Prerequisite Undergraduate Courses

Introductory Psychology
Developmental or Life-Span Psychology
Statistics
Personality Theory

Application Requirements
For admission into the Counseling Psychology doctoral program in the Lynch School of Education, all applicants must submit the following materials:

The Lynch School of Education graduate school application
Three letters of recommendation
An official copy of the Graduate Record Examination (GRE), with scores being no more than five years old (GRE code: 3218).
An official transcript of all previous coursework, both graduate and undergraduate.
Writing sample.
Resume or CV
A 2-3 page statement of purpose discussing your personal and professional reasons for pursuing a doctoral degree in Counseling Psychology.
A non-refundable application fee

Click here for more information about application requirements and mailing instructions.

Note: All applicants must carefully review the information on the linked pages.

NOTE: All Application materials must be received on or before December 1.

Doctoral applications are reviewed by faculty in January, and a small number of applicants are selected to attend a one-day interview in mid February. A final cohort of between 6 and 8 students are offered acceptance to the program.