What is the program? 

Our 60-credit, low-residency program is designed to prepare learners for licensure in as little as 2 years. Each semester begins with a 10-day on-campus residency, fostering intensive learning and meaningful connections with faculty and peers. Between residencies, you’ll continue your studies remotely through dynamic online coursework, live discussions, and individualized faculty advising, blending hands-on support with flexible, independent learning.

Why Choose This Program?

 

  • Bennington’s Progressive, Student-Centered Approach
    Rooted in Bennington’s legacy of progressive education, this program prioritizes your unique journey as a counselor, allowing you to direct your learning path. You’ll cultivate a strong professional identity grounded in compassion and authenticity.

  • Dedicated Faculty Support
    You'll work with supportive faculty who bring real-world counseling experience and mentorship. You’ll meet regularly with a dedicated faculty advisor and course faculty for support, mentorship, and clinical placement supervision to ensure your success.

  • Job Opportunities
    Clinical Mental Health Counseling is a rapidly growing field, with a high need for competent and well-trained practitioners. This program prepares you to meet this need for meaningful and lasting employment.

  • Grounded in State-of-the-Art Standards
    Guided by core competencies from the American Psychological Association (APA), American Counseling Association (ACA), and International Expressive Arts Therapy Association (IEATA), the program blends evidence-based Western practices with global approaches. You’ll be fully prepared to work toward licensure in clinical mental health counseling.

  • Innovative, Arts-Based Therapeutic Training
    With deep roots in Bennington’s renowned arts tradition, this program integrates narrative and expressive arts practices, preparing you to harness the healing power of creativity in your clinical practice.

 

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Connect with your own faculty team

Immersed in these dynamic relationships created by members of this community from around the world, students develop practices, pedagogies, and research models that value experimentation and continuously question the role of dance within and beyond traditional environments. Using symposia, retreats, and residency frameworks as ways to gather and learn, this program aims to foster new communities and networks of exchange for knowledge production and artistic practices. 

Faculty, mentors, affiliated artists, and guest lecturers represent an intentionally diverse array of approaches to theorizing and practicing embodied knowledge in relation to citizenship and art-making.

Faculty Spotlight

Our faculty of renowned professional choreographers and dancers, dedicated to contemporary practices, seek out guest artists and seasoned graduate fellows who propel the art forward. 

Elena Demyanenko

Elena Demyanenko

Elena Demyanenko is a Russian/American dance artist, choreographer, improviser, maker of dance films, and educator who lives and works between New York City, Vermont, and Moscow, Russia. Demyanenko has extensive professional performance and choreographic experience in a multicultural context from 30 years of touring around the world and is a former member of Stephen Petronio Company and Trisha Brown Dance Company.

Michael Giannitti

Michael Giannitti

Michael Giannitti has extensive professional experience as a lighting designer and educator. He has designed lighting at many of the most prestigious venues around the country and has taught abroad as a two-time Fulbright Specialist Grant recipient.

Levi Gonzalez

Levi Gonzalez

Dance artist Levi Gonzalez’s work employs a queer corporeal logic to resist narrow definitions of knowledge and experience.

Photo credit: Alex Escalante

Tilly Grimes

Tilly Grimes

Tilly Grimes is an Irish/Greek theater, opera, and film designer based in New York whose awards include The Balsamo Grant for Emerging Immigrant Artists, The Irish Arts Design Award, Irish Times Theatre Award Nomination, The Onstage Critics Award, as well as multiple Lucille Lortels and Drama Desk nominations.

Pape Ibrahima Ndiaye

Pape Ibrahima Ndiaye

 

Mina Nishimura

Mina Nishimura

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Best of the best

According to national rankings, Bennington equals excellence.

3

Best College Theater

The Princeton Review 2024

5

Most Innovative Schools

U.S. News & World Report 2022

9

Classroom Experience

The Princeton Review 2024

And we are affordable

19

Most economically diverse students at a liberal arts college

New York Times College-Access Index 2023

Why Choose This Program?

1

Bennington’s Progressive, Student-Centered Approach

Rooted in Bennington’s legacy of progressive education, this program prioritizes your unique journey as a counselor, allowing you to direct your learning path. You’ll cultivate a strong professional identity grounded in compassion and authenticity.

2

Dedicated Faculty Support

You'll work with supportive faculty who bring real-world counseling experience and mentorship. You’ll meet regularly with a dedicated faculty advisor and course faculty for support, mentorship, and clinical placement supervision to ensure your success.

3

Job Opportunities

Clinical Mental Health Counseling is a rapidly growing field, with a high need for competent and well-trained practitioners. This program prepares you to meet this need for meaningful and lasting employment.

4

Grounded in State-of-the-Art Standards

Guided by core competencies from the American Psychological Association (APA), American Counseling Association (ACA), and International Expressive Arts Therapy Association (IEATA), the program blends evidence-based Western practices with global approaches. You’ll be fully prepared to work toward licensure in clinical mental health counseling.

5

Innovative, Arts-Based Therapeutic Training

With deep roots in Bennington’s renowned arts tradition, this program integrates narrative and expressive arts practices, preparing you to harness the healing power of creativity in your clinical practice.

Choose a Concentration that Aligns with Your Passion

The Master of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling offers a general clinical mental health counseling track or three specialized concentrations to tailor your expertise:

1

Expressive Arts Therapy

Build on your creativity by becoming a Registered Expressive Arts Therapist, applying diverse art forms as therapeutic tools. You’ll learn to integrate music, movement, drama, and visual arts into your practice, adhering to IEATA guidelines.

2

Narrative Therapy

Specialize in the transformative power of storytelling, inspired by the groundbreaking work of Michael White and David Epston. Through storytelling, media, and narrative construction, help individuals, families, and communities reshape their lives with intention and agency.

3

Sexual Orientation and Gender Expression

Respond to the expanding need for inclusive, affirming counseling with this specialization. Gain expert knowledge in LGBTQIA+ issues, relational dynamics, and affirming therapeutic practices, preparing you to support clients across diverse sexual and gender identities.

Capstone or Thesis Path to Showcase Your Expertise


Whether you’re drawn to hands-on application or academic inquiry, choose from two paths to complete your degree:

1

Capstone Path

Practical, project-based application of your skills.

2

Thesis Path

A research-focused approach for those interested in advancing the field.

Connect With Our Admissions Team

Fill out the form to connect with our admissions team and find out more about Bennington.

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