November 26, 2025

What inspired you to create the Master of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling program at Bennington College?

There are three reasons. First, we know that people in our communities across the country and around the world are facing unprecedented mental health challenges due to stress, anxiety, and trauma. Combine that with a welcome decrease in stigmatization for getting mental health care, and we have a major shortage of trained clinical mental health counselors. There have never been more or better career opportunities for thoughtful and compassionate people to enter the field.

Secondly, being a clinical mental health counselor myself, I know what a rewarding career it is. I love teaching others what they need to know in order to help their patients live healthier and happier lives.

Third, there is no better place than Bennington. Bennington has this incredible history as a student-driven multidisciplinary institution with a great track record in low-residency master’s degree programs. Their low-residency Masters of Fine Arts in Writing is one of the best in the country, and last year, they launched a low-residency Masters of Fine Arts in Dance.

How does Bennington’s Masters of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling compare to similar programs offered by other schools?

Like many other programs, the course of study meets the educational requirements for licensure in nearly all states and internationally. Applicants must hold a bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution, but no undergraduate experience in psychology is required. The program is designed to take five terms to complete and includes a 100-hour practicum and a 600-hour internship students will use to gain essential hands-on experience in real-world settings. It opens up a fascinating array of career options. But Bennington’s program is different from other programs in a few key ways.

• Because it is a low-residency program, you don’t have to leave your home, job, and family for an extended time to get this master’s degree. You also don’t have to sacrifice the pleasure of learning in a close community with your peers. You spend eight days, twice a year, with fellow students on campus. The rest of your term is spent engaged in synchronous or asynchronous learning from wherever you live.
• Bennington College is famous for its multidisciplinary Plan Process, where students map their own progress. For the Masters of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, students are provided with course descriptions and learning objectives but are allowed the freedom to indicate how they will direct, demonstrate, and document their learning.
• You will have the opportunity to specialize learning if you would like. You don’t have to wait until you graduate to specialize in the ways that interest you.

Tell me more about the specializations within Bennington’s Master of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling.

For students who choose, we offer four specializations:

• Expressive Arts Therapy uses music, dance, drama, poetry, and visual arts to help individuals express emotions, explore personal growth, and heal from trauma. Integrating various art forms promotes emotional, mental, and physical well-being and offers a creative alternative or complement to traditional therapy for personal transformation and self-discovery.
• Narrative Therapy focuses on helping individuals understand and reframe their life story by viewing their problems as separate from their identity and allowing them to create a more positive narrative about themselves. The method empowers patients to “re-author” their experiences.
• Sexual Orientation and Gender Expression Therapy is a specialized form of psychological support that aims to help individuals explore and understand their gender identity and sexual orientation. Importantly, Bennington’s program is infused with an understanding of all of the ways counseling has marginalized and oppressed LGBTQ+ people in the past and is designed to develop clinicians who are competent and capable of serving the community well.
• Students interested in Community Mental Health concentrate on engaging with diverse populations across the continuum of mental health needs, including serious and persistent mental illness, substance use disorders, and co-occurring conditions in community mental health centers, integrated care settings, crisis response teams, and specialized service organizations.

What is the experience like the first term after you begin? 

First-term students take their counseling ethics course and basic counseling skills workshop, counseling theories and techniques, multicultural counseling, and human growth and development. For students who have chosen a concentration, they infuse their coursework with their area of specialized interest. In addition to coursework, students  participate in advising, study-plan development, and a variety of workshops. Transfer students work directly with faculty members to determine their particular courses and the structure of their study plan as a whole. Every student is afforded the opportunity to tailor their education to their future career goal.

What sorts of jobs can I get once I graduate?

Graduates are qualified to begin supervised postgraduate experience according to the requirements in their state and can work in a wide range of careers, including work in private practice, community organizations, telehealth, hospitals, and schools and colleges both domestically and abroad. In addition, they can continue toward specialized professional certifications—like becoming a certified sex therapist, a certified narrative therapist, a registered expressive arts therapist, or a registered expressive arts educator—or toward doctoral study.