In Fall 2007, JFK University's
Graduate School of Professional Psychology launched a new, two-year Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology program in Berkeley. This program duplicates the successful Pleasant Hill and Campbell campus Master's programs, emphasizing experiential learning, theory and substantial fieldwork, and leading to licensure in Marriage and Family Therapy (MFT), but with some unique differences:
| MA Counseling Psychology Program Berkeley Cohort |
Pleasant Hill & Campbell MA Counseling Psychology Program |
| A cohort model that lets students complete the program as a group. |
Each student completes the program at their own pace. |
| A maximum cohort size of only 20 students |
Open class sizes |
| Five 9-week terms per year with 3 classes per term |
Four 11-week quarters, with classes taken part-time or full-time |
| Year 1 (5 terms): classes on Thursday evenings and all day Saturdays
Year 2 (5 terms): one class on Thursday evenings and students accumulate practicum hours at an internship site as schedule requires |
Four 11-week quarters, with classes taken part-time or full-time |
| All primary courses held in Berkeley
Six required workshops during the two years + final Masters Exams held at Pleasant Hill and Campbell campuses |
All primary courses held at Pleasant Hill or Campbell campus
Six required weekend workshops at Pleasant Hill campus |
| 2-year program (full-time) |
2-1/2 year program (full-time) |
The 20-student cohort model will allow students to receive high-quality, personalized attention from our scholar-practitioner faculty, who will continue to integrate their own professional experiences in private practice, community mental health, behavioral healthcare, and public educational settings into the classroom learning environment. This will ensure that our students have the most current information regarding trends and practices in delivering services to clients seeking assistance in the area of counseling and psychotherapy.
The field placement component of the Berkeley program will emphasize our overall community service orientation as well as in-vivo training, giving students direct contact with their own counseling clients. Field placements will be made at captive external field placement sites that are geographically convenient to each student.
While at their field placements, students will receive both individual and group supervision from licensed Marriage and Family Therapists (MFT), Licensed Clinical Social Workers (LCSW) and Licensed Psychologists (PhD). As with our Pleasant Hill and Campbell programs, this fieldwork will help Berkeley cohort students amass significantly more hours toward licensure than many other MA Counseling Psychology programs in Northern California.
As part of our commitment to helping students, graduates and alumni meet practicum hours and continuing education requirements for licensure, the Graduate School of Professional Psychology offers an ongoing
Didactic Training Series at the Pleasant Hill campus that covers specialized topics in the field of psychology. CEUs are available for each session for a small fee through JFKU's Continuing & Extended Education. Lectures are also open to community members and MFT's and LCSW's in private practice.
Click here for details.
