Course of Study for the CMH Program

Course of Study

The CMH student population is recruited, in part, based on their work and volunteer experience in CMH and/or their status as consumers or family members of public mental health, therapy and services. The faculty accepts as their role the integration of these experiences into the course materials for the program.

Community Mental Health Curriculum

As an integral part of their counseling psychology education, students will be introduced to the fundamentalsof intensive and supplemental case management and the provision of public sector therapeutic services, in order to prepare them to work effectively in collaborative, multidisciplinary teams with other mental health and primary care providers.

Coursework will be closely integrated with practicum work in community agencies, where students will be observed and supervised in their work with clients of diverse cultures and with complex and often severe mental health issues.

Courses will be taught in a combination of weeklong intensives at the start of each Fall semester, weekends, evenings, and online.

Program Format

This program has been designed for those with experience in the public and community mental health environments. The curriculum is being designed to facilitate and support working individuals in achieving maximum educational outcomes while maintaining a healthy work/life balance.

The courses will be taught in a combination of weeklong intensives at the start of each Fall semester, weekends in intensive formats, and online.

Full-Time Core Curriculum

(As the CMH program is new and the BBS is in the process of revising course requirements, this sample grid is offered for your information. Please check with your academic advisor before registering each semester.)

Fall 1st Year Required Units

Human Development and the Family 3
Mental Health, Addiction, and the Philosophy of Recovery and Resiliency 2
Socio-Cultural Approaches to Family Therapy 2
Theories and Practice in Community Mental Health 2
Therapeutic Communication 2

Spring 1st Year Required Units

Couple and Family Therapy 3
Psychodynamics 3
Psychopathology and Psychological Assessment 3

Summer 1st Year Required Units

Professional Ethics and Family Law 2
Therapy with Adolescents and Transition-aged Youth 2
Trauma, Crisis, and Recovery-based Practice 3

Fall 2nd Year Required Units

Case Management and Treatment Planning in Community Mental Health 2
Diagnosis and Treatment of Co-occurring Disorders and Addiction 2
Human Sexuality 1
The Clinical Relationship 2
Supervised Clinical Practicum 2

Spring 2nd Year Required Units

Child Therapy 2
Group Facilitation and Group Therapy 2
Treatment of Persons with Severe and Persistent Mental Illness 2
Supervised Clinical Practicum 2

Summer 2nd Year Required Units

Advanced Psychotherapy Theory and Practice 3
Research Methods 3
Elective (total of 5 units required)

Fall 3rd Year Required Units

Beyond Cultural Competence: Cultural Humility in Family Therapy 2
Integrative Seminar—Final Project 3
Post-Practicum 0
Total number of units 60

Additional requirements include personal psychotherapy (total of 45 hours minimum).

Curriculum

The curriculum for the Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology with a concentration in Community Mental Health requires at least 60 semester hours of work. It is divided into the following three groups of courses: common core courses, concentration courses, and electives. The common core courses (designated as “MCP”) are shared by all concentrations in Counseling Psychology. They address the theory, technique, and  knowledge that apply to the general practice of counseling psychology. Those MCP courses that are designated with an additional “C” are taught with a Community Mental Health concentration. Courses within the Community Mental Health concentration and certificate are designated as “CMH.” CMH courses will incorporate principles articulated in the Mental Health Recovery Model. Those principles include the following:

• A holistic view of mental illness that focuses on the person, not just the symptoms.
• New definitions of recovery, which state:

1. Recovery is not a function of one’s theory about the causes of mental illness.
2. Recovery from severe psychiatric disabilities is achievable.
3. Recovery can occur even though symptoms may reoccur. Individuals are responsible for the solution, not the problem.
4. Recovery requires a well-organized support system.

• This model stresses the importance of consumer rights, advocacy, and social change.
• This model emphasizes applications and adaptations of theory and practice to better integrate issues of human diversity.

CMH 5006: Case Management and Treatment Planning in Community Mental Health (2 units)
This course will provide information and skills development in the fundamentals of case management, including strategies to help clients plan and navigate complex public health and social services systems. Students will be equipped to help clients create case plans that include options for graduation from public services when the client is ready to do so. This aspect of training will enable the therapists to assist their clients in navigating "the system," enabling them to access needed services across multiple service systems.

CMH 5007: Theories and Practices in Community Mental Health (2 units)
This course will provide practical information on the challenges and opportunities faced by therapists working in publicly funded settings. Topics include appropriate therapeutic models for use in public health settings; the integration of medical and mental health services; the continuum of care models of social services; and mental health, ethics, and confidentiality in public settings. This course will also equip therapists to assume positions in public and community agencies as managerial and administrative leaders.

CMH 5009: Mental Health, Addiction, and the Philosophy of Recovery and Resiliency (2 units)
This course will present a new approach to mental health services, which is a holistic view of mental illness that focuses on the person, not just the symptoms. An emphasis on consumer rights, advocacy, and social change will be presented. Applications and adaptations to issues of human diversity will be discussed. The evolution of these theories from the addiction services sector to broader application in mental health will be described and experienced.

CMH 5010: Treatment of Persons with Severe and Persistent Mental Illness (2 units)
Clients in public and community mental health systems frequently present with dynamic and complex problems. Treatment approaches and effective strategies for developing mental health outcomes will be examined.

CMH 5023: Diagnosis and Treatment of Co-Occurring Disorders and Addiction (2 units)
The interrelationships between mental, emotional, behavioral, and chemical dependency problems in the lives of clients will be examined. Effective clinical skills will be presented in the context of issues related to diagnosis, treatment, and treatment compliance of dually diagnosed clients.

CMH 5024: Couple and Family Therapy (3 units)
Theories and methods of couples therapy and family therapy, including: systemic, strategic, narrative, family-of-origin, structural and other major theories. This course includes significant experiential learning.

CMH 5025: Therapy with Adolescents and Transition-aged Youth (2 units)
This course provides the theories, applications and methods for effectively engaging adolescents and transition-aged youth in therapy. Transition-aged youth as a subpopulation have been identified by the State of CA as a priority population for effective therapeutic interventions. Students will identify and experience best practices in this field.

CMH 5026: Trauma, Crisis, and Recovery-based Practice (2 units)
This course will enable students to identify clients with complex traumatic disorders and identify effective assessment and treatment protocols. Methods for conceptualizing, assessing and treating individual, family and communities where series crisis or trauma has occurred will be presented and experienced.

CMH 5027: Advanced Psychotherapy Theory and Practice (2 units)
This course is designed to support CMH students in their first year of practicum. Building on previous coursework, particularly Therapeutic Communication and The Clinical Relationship, this course provides more advanced ways of understanding and supporting the process of change within psychotherapy practice. Community Mental Health oriented psychotherapeutic interventions, including how to best work within multidisciplinary teams and how to most effectively use case management interventions to further therapy goals, will be emphasized.

CMH 6605: Sociocultural Approaches to Family Therapy (2 units)
This course provides an overview of family as the definition evolves. Family of birth, family of choice, and surrogate family as chosen or assigned by the system will be presented as options that must be understood in order to maximize therapeutic interventions. The impact of family definition and affiliation in multiple cultural constructs will also be discussed.

CMH 6651: Beyond Cultural Competence: Cultural Humility in Family Therapy (2 units)
Racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression constrain the lives of diverse clients and impede family therapy within community mental health settings. This advanced course builds on the overview provided in CMH 6605 and develops and enhances skills that enable the therapist to deliver family therapeutic services to the diverse populations in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, and beyond. Diversity factors to be studied include, but are not limited to, race, ethnicity, social class, language, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, immigration status and history, and type of family. Understanding and working effectively with these factors is crucial to maximizing effective and culturally competent therapeutic interventions. However, in today's community mental health settings, delivering culturally competent services is only the beginning. An additional component this course seeks to embrace is that of cultural humility, which privileges a patient-focused model of working and emphasizes therapist self-awareness and a respectful attitude toward diverse points of view. Prerequisite: CMH 6605.

CMH 7701: Integrative Seminar-Final Project (3 units)
This culminating course provides an opportunity for students to reflect on their processes of personal and academic integration in the CMH program. Students will demonstrate the following: key learning from theoretical and conceptual standpoints, and knowledge of community and public mental health systems and clinical experiences.

MCP 5101: Professional Ethics and Family Law (2 units)
Ethical standards for the practice of counseling and psychology. Review and discussion of ethical and legal aspects of marriage and family therapy and practice.

MCP 5108: Psychopathology and Psychological Assessment (3 units)
This combined course provides a historical, comparative and contemporary overview of the development and clinical presentation of adult psychopathology and the categorization system of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, along with a survey of the clinical process of testing for both psychopathological structures and non-pathological personality features and traits. The individual counselor's ability to clinically analyze and interpret assessment instruments, including diagnostic tests will be emphasized.

MCP 6101: Human Sexuality (1 unit)
This course explores personal, interpersonal, and transpersonal dimensions of sexual experience, including awareness, attitudes, meaning, expression, response, sexual counseling, and integration with personal development.

MCP 6401: Research Methods (3 units)
Overview of research methodologies with special focus on qualitative approaches, comparative ways of knowing, and the creation of an integral inquiry research project.

MCP 6502: Child Therapy (2 units)
Techniques to remedy or prevent problems in children and their families. Case material introduces strategies of intervention.

MCPC 5201: Human Development and the Family (3 units)
Theories and research in life transitions, stages of development, and rites of passage, from prenatal conditions through adult experience to dying.

MCPC 5501: Psychodynamics (3 units)
Presents a history of psychodynamic ideas and their application in clinical settings. Offers a historical perspective beginning with Freudian theory through the development of object relations theory. Covers basic theoretical and clinical concepts, clinical theories about the self and self-development, and the topics of transference, countertransference, and defense. Examines relationships between psychodynamic and other clinical theories.

MCPC 5602: The Clinical Relationship (3 units)
The relationship between therapist and client is one of the central concerns of contemporary theories of therapeutic change. This course explores the relationship between therapist and client from the perspectives of contemporary psychoanalysis, humanism, and self-psychology. It provides various perspectives on transference and countertransference, and how to work with these dynamics in the clinical setting.

MCPC 5610: Therapeutic Communication (2 units)
This course provides an overview of key concepts and methods in therapeutic communication, integrating psychodynamic, humanistic, and other approaches. Experiential portion includes role-play and simulations.

MCPC 5622: Group Facilitation and Group Therapy (2 units)
This course provides the basic theories and practice necessary to design and facilitate: psychoeducational groups, special topic groups, peer support groups and other groups currently delivered in community mental health settings. In addition basic theories and practice in group process will be presented and experienced.

MCPC 7601: Supervised Clinical Practicum: Individual (2 units)
For MCP Practicum students working in schools. Presentation and discussion of case material. Emphases upon case formulation, the therapeutic relationship, and the development of clinical skills.

MCPC 7602: Supervised Clinical Practicum (2 units)
Presentation and discussion of case material. Emphases upon case formulation, the therapeutic relationship, and the development of clinical skills.

MCP 7603: Pre/Post Practicum (0 units)
Required of MFT trainees who wish to accrue hours toward licensure and who are not enrolled in Supervised Clinical Practicum (either Individual or Group).

Electives

CMH 5022: Current Issues in Family Protection and Therapy (3 units)
This course will provide a working knowledge of law, public policy, and treatment implication relating to key topics in the profession of community mental health. Specific components of the course will include the following: child abuse assessment and reporting, spousal abuse, domestic violence and partner abuse, aging, and long-term care. The course meets the requirements of the BBS for coverage of these topics.