Counseling Professionals are in High Demand
Webster's Master of Arts in Counseling supports the development of students as competent counselors, and is designed to prepare individuals for a career in this growing profession. The innovative curriculum combines classroom education and hands-on field experience to provide you with the theory and skills you need to work with individuals, couples, families and children in a variety of mental health settings.
Our diverse faculty members are practicing clinicians who take a real-world approach to learning and guide students in developing the cultural awareness necessary to serve the needs of a rapidly changing population.
A Pillar in Education

Academic Program
This degree program is designed to provide high-quality learning experiences to students, helping them become expert professional counselors who strive for individual excellence and contribute to an enhanced quality of life in local, national, and global societies. The MA in Counseling offers emphases in a choice of four disciplines.
Our professional counseling graduate degree program is divided into the following areas of emphasis with unique course requirements for each.
The MA in Counseling with an emphasis in Clinical Mental Health Counseling offered at many of our campus locations in the United States. This is the primary emphasis pursued by our students and is designed for persons wanting to practice all types of counseling. In addition to the basic learning outcomes of the MA in Counseling, the core learning outcomes of this emphasis include:
- Apply ethical and legal standards as well as knowledge of public mental health policy, financing and regulatory processes to mental health counseling.
- Implement mental health counseling principles and practices associated with education, prevention, consultation and intervention.
- Describe how living in a multicultural society impacts clients and apply effective advocacy strategies to enhance mental health services.
- Employ various assessment techniques associated with professional mental health counseling to appropriately intervene in meeting the needs of diverse clients.
- Apply evidence-based research literature associated with professional mental health counseling to meet the needs of clients living in a diverse society.
- Implement diagnostic tools appropriate for mental health counseling professionals to diagnose disorders in diverse clients.
This program provides instruction in core counseling with additional coursework in working with couples, families, and children. This emphasis is for persons wishing to work primarily with families. It is a specialty form of counseling and typically requires a longer path toward licensure. In addition to the basic learning outcomes of the MA in Counseling, the core learning outcomes of this emphasis include:
- Apply ethical and legal standards in marriage, couple and family counseling.
- Identify and apply preventive, developmental and wellness approaches in working with individuals, couples and families from multicultural and diverse backgrounds.
- Describe how living in a multicultural society impacts clients and apply effective advocacy strategies as related to the work of couples, marriage, family and child counselor.
- Employ various assessment techniques associated with couples, marriage, family and child counseling to appropriately intervene in meeting the needs of diverse clients.
- Apply evidence-based research literature associated with couples, marriage, family and child counseling to meet the needs of clients living in a diverse society.
This emphasis in community counseling is only offered at the Geneva, Switzerland campus and is not interchangeable with or transferable to counseling program emphases offered at U.S. domestic campuses.
St. Louis and South Carolina Programs
The MA in Counseling with the Clinical Mental Health Counseling emphasis, available at the main campus and the Westport campus in St. Louis, Missouri, and the South Carolina campuses in Myrtle Beach and Columbia, is accredited by The Council for the Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP).
The extended hybrid program is not CACREP-accredited.

MA in Counseling
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