Top Accredited Master’s Degrees in Counseling Online

Advantages of Earning an Online Master’s in Counseling

You can’t say enough about the benefits of getting a degree online. It allows you to study wherever and whenever you want, which means you get to keep the professional and personal life you’ve already worked hard for. Below are three great advantages to earning a master’s in counseling degree online.

Qualification for Clinical Practice

To work in a clinic or to open your own practice you must have a master’s degree in counseling. Getting your master’s also makes you a much more qualified candidate for many jobs in government and healthcare.

Flexibility

If you have internet, you can complete online courses. So an online counseling degree program lets you study anywhere, whether it’s after work on the subway, during your child’s basketball practice, or late at night at the kitchen table. This allows you to continue working and fulfilling your other responsibilities. You’ll be able to do your internship in your local community, perhaps even where you already work or are hoping to work.

Networking both with academics at your college and practitioners in your local area

You’ll learn theories and techniques from the professors in your online counseling degree program, and you’ll also meet and work with the hands-on counselors practicing in your area. That perfect balance of theoretical and practical will prepare you to be a top-notch counselor.

Ethics and Legal Issues in Counseling

This course provides an examination of American Counseling Association (ACA) ethical standards and the applications of ethical and legal considerations in professional counseling practice. It also reviews ethical decision-making models and major ethical and legal issues in the practice of professional counseling.

Cross-cultural Counseling

This course is an introduction to the process of providing counseling from a multicultural perspective. Students are introduced to the cultural composition of multiple subgroups represented in society (age, gender, sexual orientation, mental and physical characteristics, etc.) and build the knowledge, awareness, and skills necessary to become effective helpers and advocates for diverse populations. Students also gain an understanding of issues and trends in a multicultural and diverse society.

Human Development

This course provides a systematic analysis of various human behaviors concerned with teaching and learning. Students gain an understanding of the nature and needs of people at all developmental levels in a multicultural context, as well as implications for assessment and preventive and/or supportive intervention strategies.

Research Methods in Counseling

This course introduces the language, principles, reasoning, and methodologies in counseling-related research. It provides an understanding of types of research methods, basic statistics, ethical considerations, and the principles, practices, and applications of needs assessment and program evaluations. Students learn how to critically evaluate research literature, how to recognize ethical issues relevant to conducting research, and how research can improve counseling effectiveness. They’ll learn to develop relevant research questions, design appropriate research paradigms, and write a preliminary research proposal.

Supervised Internship in Counseling

After completing their practicum hours, students move into their internship. This comprehensive clinical training experience gives students the chance to do tasks that licensed counselors typically perform in schools and professional counseling settings. Students are supervised by a licensed counselor.

Addictions Counseling

The addictions counseling specialty has students examine the pharmacological, psychological, and sociological impact of taking legal and illegal drugs. It explores theories of addiction that apply to the process of misuse, dependency, and recovery. Students will be able to identify the various counseling and pharmacological treatment approaches used in the field with people who struggle with substance abuse, those with dual diagnoses, and their families. Students develop competency in screening for addictive behavior and an understanding of culturally specific vulnerability to addictive behaviors.

Marriage and Family Therapy

This concentration prepares a student to work with couples and family groups who may be recovering from traumatic or abusive situations, are experiencing grief from the death of a loved one, or have a family member who is living with a mental illness. Students learn clinical skills to help couples and families deal with issues that may affect a family’s and/or a couple’s lives.

Note
This concentration is not the same as a degree in marriage and family therapy (MFT). Visit our dedicated guide to online MFT programs to learn more about earning a dedicated degree in this field.

Mental Health Counseling

A mental health counseling concentration helps students learn to be responsible for providing psychotherapy treatments to all individuals and groups. Some mental health counselors focus on a specific demographic, such as children or the elderly, but in all cases, the counselor’s primary goal is to promote mental and emotional health.

Learn more about online master’s degrees specializing in mental health counseling.

Rehabilitation Counseling

This concentration teaches students how to help adults to change their circumstances, whether they’re finding it difficult to gain employment or are trying to change their lifestyle. Students learn to help individuals achieve personal, social, and professional goals, leading to a more fulfilling life. Rehabilitation counselors are employed by the federal government, state agencies, substance abuse facilities, private practices, prisons, schools, and other settings.

School Counseling

This concentration focuses on the academic, career, and personal/social development of school-aged youth. Master’s students learn to work professionally with children from kindergarten through high school along with their families. They provide social-emotional support to students attending school in an era of lock-down drills and cyberbullying and gain the knowledge and skills to develop, implement, and evaluate a PreK-12 comprehensive developmental guidance program.