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Specializations in Counseling: Choosing the Right Focus for Your Career Goals

When you've decided you want to make a positive difference in people's lives through mental health services, you must determine which counseling career options interest you most. The mental health counselor training and education you pursue will be tailored to prepare you for various counseling specializations. Exploring those options and understanding what each focus entails can help you determine the types of counseling degrees that suits you best. This can help you decide what you want to study and the type of counseling career you would like to pursue after graduation.

Why Specialize in Counseling?

Students who choose to specialize in counseling enjoy several benefits. In addition to the following benefits, earning a counseling degree will increase your expertise and provide you with the credentials necessary to satisfy counseling licensure requirements in most states.

Aligning Your Passion With Professional Purpose

Deciding to specialize in a specific counseling field will enable you to focus on this area of interest while earning your degree and working in your chosen profession. In this way, choosing the right counseling specialization is essential to aligning your passion and interests with your professional goals.

Meeting the Unique Needs of Diverse Populations

Mental health professionals have the opportunity to work with diverse populations in counseling, including patients of different ages and backgrounds and patients with various diagnoses. Every client is unique, has different needs and will benefit most from different approaches to counseling. Focusing on a specific area of study and selecting a counseling specialization allows you to more effectively address the distinct needs of particular individuals. This enables the delivery of more tailored and impactful counseling methods.

Expanding Career Opportunities Through Focused Expertise

Studying counseling makes you a knowledgeable generalist who knows a little bit about most counseling topics and approaches. Deciding to specialize in a specific type of counseling will make you an expert in a particular field. Concentrating your studies and practical training in a specific area of counseling can broaden your career opportunities. Developing expertise in a niche makes you a sought-after professional in fields requiring your unique skills and background.

Marriage and Family Therapy (MFT)

Marriage and family therapy specialists focus on relationships and family dynamics.

Supporting Couples, Families and Relationship Dynamics

Professionals working in MFT work with individuals, couples and families to help strengthen and improve relationships while addressing challenges with relational problems in addition to emotional and mental health issues.

Focus on Systems-Based and Relational Counseling

Marriage and family therapists recognize the importance of relationships, as they affect a person's well-being, happiness, health and quality of life. They use a systems-based approach to counseling which considers the individual patient within the context of their family, friends, co-workers, romantic relationships and community.

Skills and Traits That Suit MFT Professionals

Like all mental health professionals, MFTs benefit from being compassionate and patient. They need strong communication and interpersonal skills. Additionally, they can benefit from being resilient and able to detach and not be impacted by clients sharing the personal, intimate details of their lives.

School Counseling

School counselors work in K-12 and higher-education settings. They are certified and qualified to provide students with academic and career advice while supporting emotional and social development. They help connect students with available resources and often possess crisis intervention training to guide students experiencing difficult situations.

In addition to working directly with students, school counselors can do the following:

Advocating for Educational Equity and Reform

School counselors are uniquely positioned between students, parents, teachers and administrators to advocate on behalf of students. They can communicate with the community and district leadership to ensure they understand the importance of comprehensive school counseling.

Participating in State and Local Policy Discussions

Through their keen understanding of school environments

Using Data to Guide School Improvement

School counselors can aggregate, organize and analyze student data to help shape school policies, procedures, curriculum and activities, continuously strengthening the health of the student body, improving student outcomes and more positively shaping student life.

Other Emerging Specializations

The mental health counseling field is broad and diverse, with several available and emerging specializations.

Substance Abuse and Addiction Counseling

Addiction and substance abuse counseling is a mental health focus that provides care and support to people who are struggling with substance use disorders (SUDs) of all kinds, all severities and all complexities. Addiction counselors help patients understand the underlying cause of their SUD and provide them with personalized support, education, counseling and treatment strategies to improve their health, well-being, relationships and lives.

Trauma-Informed Counseling and Crisis Intervention

Mental health professionals working in these specialized areas establish practices and procedures that are based in trauma-informed care. This form of counseling recognizes the impact of traumatic experiences and adjusts its approach to assessment, therapy and treatment accordingly to minimize the risk of retraumatization.

Counselors providing trauma-informed therapy are also often certified in crisis intervention, which provides them with the tools, training and experience needed to address immediate distress to help stabilize clients experiencing crisis situations.

Develop Behavioral Skills for Academic and Career Success

Future-focused fields of counseling like life coaching aim to help clients identify their desires, set short-term and long-term goals, develop new skills and identify the things they can do to begin working toward these goals with the ultimate aim of improving their lives. These counselors can help clients achieve professional, personal and relationship goals.

How to Choose the Right Path

Choosing a counseling focus is a big decision, and it can be complicated because there are a lot of things to consider, such as your interests, degree options, professional opportunities, workplace settings and licensing requirements. Consider the following factors to determine the best counseling specialization for you.

Reflecting on Your Strengths and Interests

Thinking about your strengths and interests can help you determine the counseling specialization best suited to your individual aptitude and passions. Think about the topics in counseling you most enjoy learning about. The topics that most excite you, that are easiest to digest in your textbooks and that you find yourself thinking about long after you've completed a chapter are the topics that are likely best suited for your counseling career's focus.

Considering Work Environment and Population Preferences

In addition to subject matter, you should also think about the concrete realities of working in the counseling specialization you choose. Certain specializations will impact your workplace setting and the type of patients you work with on a regular basis. Consider the following examples:

School counselors tend to work with children and young adults in academic settings.
Addiction counselors work with patients who are struggling with substance use disorders. They often work in clinical and hospital settings.
Marriage and family therapists work with patients of different ages in capacities and settings, ranging from social work to private practices.

While there can be flexibility found in all types of counseling, clinical mental health counseling most often provides a diverse selection of patient types and workplace settings among these specializations.

Evaluating Certification and Licensing Requirements

Professional counselors must complete the requirements to become licensed and certified in their state within the counseling specialization they choose. Be sure you do the research before settling on the type of counseling specialization that is right for you. Certain types of counselors are required to complete different certifications. Remember that different states have different requirements, and you will want to ensure you satisfy the requirements for the state in which you will be practicing.

How Texas Wesleyan Supports Your Counseling Journey

Texas Wesleyan University Students have a variety of educational paths available in counseling, such as a Master of Arts in Professional Counseling, a Master of Science in Marriage and Family Therapy and a Master of Science in School Counseling, in addition to a variety of Ph.D.-level degree tracks.

Flexible Online Program Options

Options to study and earn a counseling degree online provide flexibility to students who are already working professionals or who have personal responsibilities that demand much of their time. With online options, students can complete coursework with minimal disruption to their daily lives.

Experienced Faculty and Personalized Advising

Our faculty has extensive experience researching and working in counseling and clinical psychology. We also provide personalized advising with academic advisors who get to know each student and provide them with personalized advice, guidance and support to help ensure successful academic outcomes.

Real-World Training and Internship Opportunities

Through our graduate-level counseling programs, students gain access to real-world training and internship opportunities that can help them experience the counseling profession first-hand and satisfy supervised practice hours for licensure. At Texas Wesleyan, students also gain hands-on experience through our on-campus counseling center, where they can earn their hours while working directly with professors who provide guidance and support. We are one of the few universities offering this unique service to both current TXWES students and members of the community.

Take the First Step on the Next Stage of Your Counseling Career Path

If you're ready to equip yourself with the education, skills, training and real-world experience you need to begin a career in a specialized field of counseling, then the first step will be to enroll in a graduate degree program. Regardless of the counseling focus you choose, our advisors are here to support you throughout your graduate-level education — whether you choose to pursue a marriage and family therapy degree, a school counselor degree or specialize in clinical mental health counseling.

To learn more about the in-person and online counseling programs available at Texas Wesleyan University, we welcome you to connect with our Admissions and Aid office today.