Master’s Degree in Professional Mental Health Counseling
Our Professional Mental Health Counseling Program prepares highly skilled, ethical, and compassionate graduate students for a counseling career grounded in a commitment to social justice.
The Professional Mental Health Counseling program at Lewis & Clark has a long-standing reputation in the community for educating professional counselors who are well-grounded in theory and skillful in providing sound clinical interventions. We train empathetic and compassionate practitioners who, through their creative leadership and advocacy, contribute to the advancement of the counseling profession and the cause of social justice.
Degrees Offered
The Professional Mental Health Counseling program offers a master of arts degree as well as an opportunity to specialize in addictions treatment.
Professional Mental Health Counseling
Accreditation
This program is accredited by the 2016 Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) standards for Clinical Mental Health Counseling programs.
Grounded in social justice
The Professional Mental Health Counseling (PMHC) program prepares highly skilled, ethical, and compassionate mental health professionals grounded in a commitment to social justice.
We emphasize the client-counselor relationship, creative and experiential modalities, and a thorough understanding of mental health issues across the lifespan. The curriculum reflects multiple theoretical perspectives with guidance to support students in developing their own framework for community and clinical practice.
A transformative environment
The PMHC program offers a transformative environment where students emerge with an understanding of their own social locations and the role of power, privilege and difference within institutional, social, intimate, and therapeutic relationships. We have a commitment to social justice which is embodied in six focus options across the curriculum:
- Counseling with LGBT+ clients
- Feminist counseling
- Mind/body/spirit/creativity
- Community/professional advocacy
- Ecotherapies
- Eating disorders
Graduates are from diverse backgrounds and prepared to serve
Graduates understand that the following aspects of a person’s life are essential when reflecting upon how power, privilege, and oppression affect the well-being of individuals and their relationships: physical ability, culture, race/ethnicity, social and political processes, socioeconomic status, exile/migration status, religious and spiritual beliefs, language, education, gender, sexual orientation and age.
Our programs are designed to meet the needs of students from diverse backgrounds who have a wide range of professional goals. Undergraduate degrees from a variety of disciplines in addition to psychology (e.g. communication, sociology, anthropology, foreign languages, religion, philosophy, education, business) can serve as the foundation for your new identity as a professional counselor. As you learn professional skills and enhance your own personal qualities, you gain the ability to make a real difference in the world, helping to change lives for the better.
Merrilee A. MacLean BA ’74More about MerrileeL&C reinforced my work ethic, and made me believe I could do anything I wanted to if I worked hard enough.
Ainsley Rios BA ’27More about AinsleyI chose Lewis & Clark College because it checked all of my boxes: swim team, an art community, and a highly ranked psychology program—all on a beautiful campus.
