School of Mental and Behavioral Health
As part of the School of Mental and Behavioral Health (SMBH), the diverse theoretical orientations taught in the classrooms are woven into the fabric of the university-wide mission statement: "How ought we to live?"
Meaningful Mission
Our aim is to educate competent counselors and family therapists who advocate for individuals, couples and families who embody integrity and facilitate positive change.
Experiential Training
Students provide faculty-supervised, low-cost mental health services to individuals, couples and families in the endowed Regis Center for Counseling, Family and Play Therapy at the Thornton campus.
Degrees and Programs
| Master of Arts: Marriage and Family Therapy
| Ph.D.: Counselor Education and Supervision
| Post-Graduate Certificate: Counseling Children and Adolescents
Our Mission
The mission of the School of Mental and Behavioral Health (SMBH) is to involve students in a search for truth, values and a just existence within the framework of humanistic, depth and systemic/relational traditions.
Cultivating truth, values and a just existence in the fields of counseling and marriage and family therapy requires a holistic and humanistic perspective that recognizes the lived interplay of thought, feeling and action, as well as the deeper influences of soul and spirit, in the creation and transformation of human meaning and the relationships in which this meaning is enacted.
At the heart of the therapeutic relationship and the art of psychotherapy, disciplined thought encourages an openness to truth; an appreciation for the deep life of feeling fosters an understanding of the origins of one’s values and a sense of beauty; and a responsible, ethical willingness to act in the world and in one’s community opens one to a sense of a good and just existence. The healing and mysterious aspects of a therapeutic relationship are founded in its ability to reflect the greater whole which balances thinking, feeling and action as intimations of truth, beauty and goodness.
Service to community in the fields of counseling and family therapy necessitates a broad understanding of the social, political and cultural influences that shape our lives and frame the question of, “How we ought to live?” SMBH students wrestle with how best to incorporate theories and techniques of change into the practice of creating therapeutic relationships. They will help to foster hope and courage in those we serve, who are striving to live more productive and just lives.
The Master of Arts (MA) in Counseling degree (Specialty: Community Counseling) is accredited by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling & Related Educational Programs (CACREP), the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) and is approved by the International Registry of Counselor Education Programs (IRCEP).
The Master of Arts (MA) in Marriage and Family Therapy program is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Marriage and Family Therapy Education (COAMFTE), 112 South Alfred Street, Alexandria, Virginia 22314, (703) 838-9808, coa@aamft.org.
Center for Counseling, Family and Play Therapy
The Regis Center for Counseling, Family and Play Therapy provides low to no-cost counseling services to members of our surrounding communities through sessions with Master's level therapists-in-training.
Meet the SMBH Faculty
