Counseling Psychology

doctoral program

Overview of Mission

The Counseling Psychology doctoral program at Boston College seeks to prepare the next generation of psychological leaders in mental health, education, organizational, and community contexts. The program emphasizes the scientist-practitioner training model 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 practice skills in a wide array of settings, encompassing mental health organizations, educational institutions, academia, public policy agencies, and various other occupational contexts.

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

ability to comprehend and critically analyze current literature in the field
understanding of major theoretical frameworks for counseling, personality, and career development
skills to combine research and scientific inquiry
knowledge and practice of a variety of assessment techniques
respect for and knowledge of diverse client populations
ability to provide supervision, consultation, and outreach services to a broad array of client populations
commitment to the ethical and legal standards of the profession including sensitivity to individual, gender, and cultural differences
demonstrated competencies with a variety of individual and group counseling approaches in supervised 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 20002-4242 ; 202 336-5979) and is designed to qualify candidates for membership in that organization and Division 17 (Counseling Psychology).
The program is designed 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 six years 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

Since 2001, our program has graduated 54 students. The mean time of completion for these 54 graduates is 6.48 years with the modal time for completion of 5 years. The range of time frames needed to complete the program during the 2000-2007 period is as follows:

Completed in 4 years: 4%
Completed in 5 years: 41%
Completed in 6 years: 19%
Completed in 7 years: 20%
Completed in 8 years: 2%
Completed in 9 years: 4%
Completed in 10 years: 4%
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 2007 were $970 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. 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. All of these mechanisms of financial support typically carry full tuition remission with stipends that range from $14,000 to $16,000 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 2001, 54 students have completed APPIC approved internships. Of these students, 51 received offers the first year they applied, yielding a 93% match rate for initial intern applicants. The other four 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 2001, four students left the program. Two were dismissed, and two left the program for personal reasons. This yields an attrition rate of 7%.

Licensure

Eighty-percent of graduates from 1997-2005 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

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

Office Phone number: 617-552-4710

Office of Graduate Student Services - Lynch School of Education: 617 552-4214

Fax number: 617-552-1981

Chair: Dr. Elizabeth Sparks - sparks@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

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

Guerda Nicolas: Spirituality and religion in the lives of adolescents, effective intervention for ethnic minority adolescents, mental health treatment for depressed Haitian adolescents, social support network and health of ethnic minorities

Elizabeth Sparks: Prevention and intervention with children affected by community violence; multicultural issues in counseling psychology; the intersection of culture, race, and feminist psychology.

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.

Admissions:

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 competently implement 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 (insert link here to MA program).

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 helping roles and in counseling-types of roles
GRE scores (verbal, quantitative; the Psychology test is not required)
Personal statement
Letters of recommendation
Writing sample

Successful applicants typically demonstrate evidence of their commitment to the scientist-practitioner training model and their 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.)

Group Counseling

Family Therapy

Principles and Techniques of Counseling

Introductory Statistics

Psychopathology

Psychological Testing

Direct Admits:

As indicated earlier, the successful direct admit candidate presents with outstanding credentials and clear evidence of the commitment to scholarship, social justice, and counseling practice. 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 need to apply for the doctoral program. There is no direct linkage between the MA program and the doctoral program that would obviate the need for students to apply and be considered among other applicants.

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

Further information with respect to all of the above application requirements including mailing specifications can be found here.

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

NOTE: All Application materials must be received on or before December 15 .

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.