What this program actually is
OrientationDeliberately eclectic and says so — the department describes itself as "dedicated to interpersonal, intrapsychic, and systemic methods" with faculty representing "a breadth of theoretical orientations," and points students toward electives in "psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, emotion-focused, person-centered, family systems, existential, mindfulness, hypnotherapy"
Santa Clara's Department of Counseling Psychology has been running since 1964 and its own handbook does not undersell it: the department describes itself as holding "a prominent place in Northern California as the pre-eminent master's level institution for the formation of licensed psychotherapists." Structurally it is the most flexible large MFT program in the Bay Area. One 90-quarter-unit M.A. in Counseling Psychology carries four tracks — MFT, LPCC, Combined MFT/LPCC, and a non-licensure Self-Designed track — layered with five optional emphases that the handbook describes as functioning "like minors." Only six courses (18 units) are core for everyone. The MFT track then adds sixteen named courses and leaves 19.5 units of electives, which is a genuinely large amount of choice by California standards, and which is exactly how the emphases are paid for.
That last point is the one prospective students most often get wrong, so be precise about it. The emphases are usually 9 units, and for a single-track MFT student those 9 units are absorbed into the 19.5 elective units — an emphasis costs you no extra units and no extra time. Extra units only appear on the Combined MFT/LPCC track, where the department's public page says an emphasis pushes the degree to 91.5 units (93 for Latino Counseling) while the 2025–26 student handbook says 93–96 depending on emphasis. The five emphases as currently listed are Latino Counseling, Health Psychology, LGBTQ+ Counseling, Community Mental Health, and Child and Adolescent Mental Health. Community Mental Health is new: through the 2025–26 handbook it was called Alternative and Correctional Psychology, and its old third course (CPSY 245 Transitional Treatment and Vocational Planning) has been rewritten as CPSY 245 Community Mental Health, a systems-level foundation course, with CPSY 320 Substance Use and Addictions added as a requirement for students starting Fall 2026. The correctional content survives inside it — CPSY 244 Correctional Psychology is still required and students "must be able to pass a law enforcement background check" because of field visits to secure facilities. The Latino Counseling emphasis, which the handbook claims is "one of only three programs in the United States," runs four courses including CPSY 366, "conducted completely in Spanish."
Two things in the required curriculum are rare and worth weighing. First, every single student — 90-unit and 45-unit alike — must take CPSY 221, a 1.5-unit experiential Lab Group taken concurrently with the group counseling course, in which the group itself is the material. Very few California programs require an experiential group of every student. Second, the degree ends in a take-home comprehensive essay exam rather than a thesis, and the handbook is unusually candid about it: "The Comprehensive Exam is not something you should 'study for'" and "the exam questions from the previous quarter are posted online and available for review. The questions change little if at all from quarter to quarter." On the Jesuit question: the 90 required units contain no theology, spirituality or religion course. Santa Clara's Catholic identity surfaces in the department's stated values ("We Value the Whole Person") and in the admissions requirement that your statement of purpose "must include evidence of your commitment to Social Justice, Multiculturalism and Diversity" — not in required coursework.
See it and hear it
The courses that define it
Every California program teaches law and ethics, assessment and a survey of theories. These are the courses that are not on every list — the ones that tell you what this particular faculty believes therapy is. The quoted text is the catalog’s own; the note underneath each one is mine.
Lab Group
"This lab is an experiential application of the theories and principles learned in 219. This lab is taken concurrently with CPSY 219. Note: All 90-unit students and all 45 unit students are required to take this lab." CPSY 219 itself focuses on "process-oriented, especially close-ended, groups."catalog ↗
Why it is worth noticingThis is the single most distinctive requirement in the program. A mandatory experiential process group, for every student in every degree track, is something almost no other California MFT program requires — most treat group work as a lecture course. If sitting in a group where your own behavior is the curriculum sounds intolerable, this program is not optional about it.
Advanced Group Counseling
"This course focuses on practices of group therapy, and on the complexities of parallel process and the transference/counter transference issues in groups... There is extensive use of videotape, role-playing, and hands on practice. This class includes a required one-day 'marathon' group session."catalog ↗
Why it is worth noticingThe elective follow-on to the required lab, and it keeps the experiential commitment: a full-day marathon group. Programs that offer advanced group work at all usually do it as a seminar. This is a department that thinks group process has to be lived through rather than read about.
Spanish Based Interviewing and Assessment
"Course conducted completely in Spanish. Emphasis will be placed on conducting client interviews, assessments, making recommendations, and providing instructions in Spanish. Other topics include use of advanced level Spanish in job/field-related language contexts." Prerequisites: CPSY 200 and fluency in Spanish.catalog ↗
Why it is worth noticingNot a course about Latino clients taught in English — a graduate clinical course delivered entirely in Spanish, requiring fluency to enter. It is the capstone of a Latino Counseling emphasis the department claims is one of only three in the country, and it is the reason bilingual SCU graduates are sought after by Bay Area agencies.
Community Mental Health
"This course introduces a systems-level framework for understanding and working with individuals, families, and communities affected by structural inequities and institutional barriers." It covers "criminal justice, child welfare, foster care, educational systems, immigration, and healthcare," drawing on "social work frameworks and community-based practice" for systems navigation, case management, placements and cross-system coordination.catalog ↗
Why it is worth noticingThis course is the visible edge of a live rebuild: the old Alternative and Correctional Psychology emphasis has been reframed as Community Mental Health, and this is its new conceptual foundation. It teaches case management and systems navigation from a social-work frame, which is unusual content for a counseling-psychology master's and directly useful for anyone heading into county or nonprofit work.
Object Relations Therapy
"An introduction to the central ideas and processes involved in the object-relations approach to psychotherapy. Critical concepts such as projective identification, transference/countertransference, the holding environment, internal objects, transitional phenomena, the therapeutic matrix, etc. are explored and practiced. Readings from the British school (Klein, Winnicott) and American (Ogden)."catalog ↗
Why it is worth noticingConcrete evidence that SCU's 'eclectic' claim has teeth. A named-theorist object-relations elective sitting alongside existential therapy (CPSY 288), CBT, emotion-focused work and hypnotherapy is a much deeper psychodynamic bench than a typical CA MFT program carries — and it is reachable inside the MFT track's 19.5 elective units.
Early Childhood / Infant Mental Health
"Students will learn about the diagnostic system and cultural formulation for young children, the DC:0-5," along with attachment theory, affect regulation theory and parent-child relationship competencies, plus "conceptual and experiential components of reflective practice, a core tool for working with this population" and screening tools for children birth to age five.catalog ↗
Why it is worth noticingTeaching the DC:0-5 by name — the infant and early childhood diagnostic classification, not the DSM — is a marker of a serious 0-to-5 program. It anchors the Child and Adolescent Mental Health emphasis, the newest and most in-demand of the five.
Counseling Practicum
"Supervised counseling experience designed specifically to meet California MFT and LPCC licensing requirements. Weekly seminars for consultation and discussion with a licensed supervisor... Must complete three consecutive quarters of this course beginning in fall quarter and you must remain in the same section all year."catalog ↗
Why it is worth noticingThe 'same section all year' rule is not administrative fussiness — it means your practicum consultation group is a fixed cohort with one supervisor for nine months, which is closer to how a real consultation group works than the rotating-section model many programs use.
The whole degree, term by term
What you would actually take, in the order you would take it. Sequences change; check the current catalog before you count on any single term.
Quarter system (Fall/Winter/Spring plus an optional but typical Summer), so a full-time load is three 3-unit courses = 9 units per quarter. The handbook publishes both 3-year and 4-year sample plans for each track; the 3-year plan below assumes a Fall start and requires summer terms or overloads. Course numbering is explicitly not sequential — the handbook warns "Course sequencing is NOT numerical." Part-time students take longer and have more freedom. Emphasis courses substitute for electives. course sequence ↗
90 quarter units (91.5–93 for the Combined MFT/LPCC track with an emphasis, per the program page; the 2025–26 handbook says 93–96)units in total
- CPSY 200 Psychology of Interpersonal Communications (3)
- CPSY 216 Psychology of Human Development (3)
- CPSY 218 Foundations of Psychotherapy and Personality (3)
- CPSY 220 Research Methods (3)
- CPSY 231 Multicultural Counseling (3)
- CPSY 275 Ethical and Legal Issues in Counseling (3)
- CPSY 200 Psychology of Interpersonal Communications (3)
- CPSY 218 Foundations of Psychotherapy and Personality (3)
- CPSY 216 Psychology of Human Development (3)
- CPSY 220 Research Methods (3)
- CPSY 231 Multicultural Counseling (3)
- CPSY 275 Ethical and Legal Issues (3)
- CPSY 212 Psychology of Relationships (3)
- CPSY 219 Psychology of Group Counseling (3) + CPSY 221 Lab Group (1.5), taken concurrently
- CPSY 227 Counseling Process and Skills (3)
- CPSY 214 Evidence-Based Approaches to Psychotherapy (3)
- CPSY 211 Human Sexuality (3)
- CPSY 291 Counseling for Grief, Loss, and Trauma (3)
- CPSY 318 Clinical Assessment I: Diagnosis (3)
- CPSY 328 Clinical Assessment II: Issues in Child Diagnosis (3)
- CPSY 311 Psychology of Marriage and Couples Counseling (3)
- CPSY 315 Family Therapy (3)
- CPSY 317 Therapeutic Interventions with Children (3)
- Electives / emphasis courses (3 courses)
- CPSY 333.1 / 333.2 / 333.3 Counseling Practicum: MFT, three consecutive quarters (9)
- CPSY 320 Substance Use and Addictions: Assessment & Treatment (3)
- CPSY 323 Psychopharmacology (3)
- CPSY 319 Clinical Assessment: Testing (3)
- Electives / emphasis courses (4 courses, one of which may be 1.5 units)
How practicum actually works
Californian clinical training runs in two legally distinct stages, and the difference decides what a program can and cannot do for you.
A trainee is a student. You see clients while still enrolled, at a site your program approves, supervised by someone the site provides. This is practicum, and it is the stage a program controls. An associate — registered with the Board after you graduate — is no longer a student, is usually paid, and is working toward the 3,000 hours the license requires. The Board renamed this stage from “intern” to “associate” in 2018, so any page still saying “MFT intern” is quoting something out of date.
Hours you bank as a trainee count toward the 3,000, up to a limit, which is why the size and quality of a program’s placement matters long after graduation: a student who leaves with 1,000 hours starts the associate years a third of the way through them, and one who leaves with the 225-hour minimum starts at the beginning.
Practicum is also where a degree most often stops being on schedule. Coursework runs on a calendar the school controls; placement does not. The questions that matter are therefore all about who owns the problem of finding you a site — and the answer differs enormously between programs on this list.
What happens after the degree →
You apply, with the school’s help
There is an approved-site list and real support, and the seat is still yours to win. Most programs are here and most students manage it. Ask for last year’s numbers rather than the policy: how many students placed on the first round, and how many had to extend.
The Practicum Spreadsheet is a collection of clinical sites that contain descriptions of clinical sites throughout the Bay Area. This information should describe how each site would like to be contacted (i.e. send a resume, call to make an appointment etc.) [...] Interviewing for a practicum site is like looking for a job. You will interview with various sites and eventually choose one that presents itself as the best match. the school’s own page →
Practicum is nine units across three consecutive quarters (CPSY 333.1, .2, .3) beginning in fall, and you must stay in the same section with the same group instructor for all three. To be eligible you need 63 completed units and fifteen named prerequisite courses done. The department maintains a Practicum Binder and spreadsheet of approved sites and runs an annual Practicum Fair in January, but the handbook is explicit that "Students are responsible for securing a practicum site" — the department approves sites, it does not assign them. All sites must be pre-approved as meeting BBS requirements, and you must submit proof of malpractice insurance before your first class. Students who want experience earlier can take CPSY 330, a 1-unit pre-practicum, up to three times after completing 18 units; those hours don't count toward practicum but do count toward MFT licensure hours (LPCC students may not accrue pre-practicum hours). Note the department's warning that practicum is intensive enough that most students should not attempt it alongside full-time work. source ↗
Will this degree travel
Not COAMFTE accredited
That is not a defect — 66 of the 78 institutions on the Board’s list are in the same position, including most of the Cal States, and their graduates license in California every year.
It becomes a problem if you leave. Several states will not accept a non-COAMFTE degree without remedial coursework, and a few will not accept it at all. If there is any chance you move, check the destination board’s rules before you enroll, not after.
What the Board requires of any qualifying degree →
What it is, on paper
Emphases: Latino Counseling, LGBTQ Counseling, Health Psychology, Correctional Psychology, Child & Adolescent Mental Health
What it costs
The figure below is the institution’s own, from its own page, with the year it applies to. Multiply the per-unit rate by the actual unit count and add campus fees before comparing it with anything.
$726 a unit — source
What a month costs to live on while you study →
Getting in
Provide one copy of official transcripts from all post-secondary institutions attended, showing a minimum 3.0 undergraduate GPA and any conferred degrees. source →
How its graduates did on the Board’s exam
Counting every attempt rather than only first attempts, the figure is 91% across 450 sittings here, against 66% statewide. First attempts are the fairer comparison — counting resits measures how many tries people needed rather than how many passed, and it penalises a school whose graduates keep going.
On the separate California Law and Ethics exam, 90% of this school’s 524 first-time candidates passed, against 80% statewide.
Recorded by the Board as Santa Clara University. Its list is kept by institution and its names lag: a school that has since renamed appears under the name it had when the candidates sat.
What this number is, and what it is not
It describes candidates, not teaching. In 2022 the Council on Social Work Education removed licensing-exam pass rates from its accreditation standards, saying the data “may not be an equitable measure of program outcomes” — after the social-work exam board’s own analysis found first-time pass rates of 84% for white candidates and 45% for Black candidates. A program that enrolls more career-changers and more students of color will post a lower rate while teaching at least as well. The accrediting body with the most reason to want this metric examined it and stopped using it.
The denominator is not this year’s students. These are people who sat the exam during the window, often several years after graduating and sometimes after the program changed shape or owner.
It is published here because it is a real, official figure that is otherwise almost impossible to find — and it is published on this page only. There is no pass-rate column in the directory, nothing is sorted by it, and no school on this site is ranked against another.
July 2018 - December 2024, pooled (13 semiannual BBS reports) · the Board’s published exam results by school →
What people say about it
Quoted where the wording carries the meaning, linked in every case, opening in a new window. The tags are my reading of each source, not a measurement, and the unflattering ones are here too.
What to ask before you apply
None of these are answered on a program page, and all five change what the degree is actually worth to you.
The single question that separates programs. Ask for a list of current sites, and ask plainly whether the program places you or expects you to find your own. A rural or online student unable to find a site cannot graduate.
The Board publishes this by school, so the program cannot be the only source. Ask anyway, and see whether the answer matches.
Per-unit rates move. Multiply by the actual unit count and add campus fees before comparing anything.
The 500 couples-and-families hours are carved out of the 1,750 clinical ones, and they are the category associates most often finish short on. A program placing students in adult individual settings will not generate them.
Sometimes yes, sometimes with extra units, sometimes only in one delivery format. Get it in writing rather than from a brochure.
What I could not establish
Everything above is sourced. These are the things I looked for and could not establish - take them to admissions, and note how quickly and precisely they answer.
- Cohort size is not published. The handbook says classes under ten students are normally canceled and that core courses run in multiple sections each quarter, which implies a sizeable intake, but SCU gives no number.
- The department's own course-description web page is out of date — it still lists retired numbering (e.g. CPSY 220 as a 0-unit lab, CPSY 245 as object-relations therapy, CPSY 302 marked discontinued after 2014). Course titles, units and descriptions here were taken from SCU's live course-catalog API instead, cross-checked against the 2025–26 handbook.
- The unit count for the Combined MFT/LPCC track with an emphasis is inconsistent between SCU's own sources: the program page says 91.5 units (93 with Latino Counseling) while the 2025–26 handbook says 93–96 depending on emphasis. Confirm with an advisor before relying on either.
- The emphasis names and course lists are mid-transition. The public page shows Community Mental Health with CPSY 243/244/245/320; the 2025–26 handbook still shows Alternative and Correctional Psychology with CPSY 243/244/245 and different course titles. Likewise the LGBTQ+ and Latino course numbers differ slightly between the two.
- The MFT-only and combined MFT/LPCC tracksheet PDFs linked from the program page return 404; only the LPCC tracksheet resolves. Track requirements here come from the handbook instead.
- No in-house training clinic — SCU places students at external sites only.
- Licensure exam pass rates and completion rates are not published.
Sources for this page (10)
- CPSY Student Handbook, Academic Year 2025–2026 (degree requirements, emphases, practicum, comprehensive exam, sample course plans)
- Counseling Psychology program page — tracks, emphases, 90 units
- Counseling Emphasis page — current emphasis names, coordinators and course lists
- Counseling Psychology 2025–2026: What is Practicum? (hours, prerequisites, site search)
- CPSY course descriptions (SCU course catalog)
- ECP admissions — application process, statement of purpose, references
- ECP tuition and deadlines — $816/unit for 2026–27, Feb 1 deadline
- Counseling Psychology schedules, forms and policies (handbooks, practicum forms, quarterly schedules)
- Niche — SCU School of Education and Counseling Psychology graduate reviews
- GradReports — Santa Clara University reviews