Clinical Mental Health Counseling

Admission Requirements

Please see the South University academic catalog for program specific admissions requirements.

Course Requirements

Outcomes

The objectives of the South University, Columbia Clinical Mental Health Counseling program are to recruit eligible students from all areas and provide fair and equitable admissions criteria; make available a variety of instructional models and resources to provide the student with the most effective learning arrangements and to provide appropriate learning opportunities for counseling students that will prepare them to perform their expected competencies in an ethical, legal, safe, and effective manner upon graduation; prepare counseling students to communicate effectively; instill the importance and value of continued education and involvement in appropriate professional and community affairs after graduation; and encourage the counseling students to recognize their own strengths and limitations.

• Students will demonstrate knowledge, comprehension, synthesis, and application of the major theories comprising the foundation of counseling from a historical and contemporary perspective.
• Students will demonstrate an awareness and comprehension of the normal and abnormal mechanisms of change within individuals across the lifespan.
• Graduates will demonstrate an ability to properly identify, assess, conceptualize, diagnose, and treat mental disorders in the context of the accepted diagnostic nomenclature.
• Students will gain an understanding and appreciation of the contributions of quantitative and qualitative research and the synergy among the theoretical, clinical and scientific components of the field.
• Students will explore and understand the impact of their personal view as it relates to their world view and the multidimensional nature of cultural influences as a Counselor Educator.
• Students will develop effective verbal and written communication skills necessary to interface with various constituents including clients, treatment teams, and public entities.
• Student will demonstrate an appropriate level of professional development as evidenced by the knowledge and understanding of pertinent ethical and legal principles in the profession, in addition to current/emerging issues in the field.
• Students will achieve an appreciation and level of proficiency concerning the knowledge, skills, and competencies deemed appropriate for use in the profession as identified by the ongoing need for education and training beyond graduation.

Core Faculty

Columbia Campus Core Faculty

Charlotte Redden Hamilton, PhD, LPC/S, LAC, NCC, ACS
Department Chairperson, Program Director, and Associate Professor of Clinical Mental Health Counseling programs at South University, Chairperson for the Council for Diversity and Inclusion 2020-2021

Dr. Charlotte Redden Hamilton is a Columbia, South Carolina native. She is the department chairperson of all clinical mental health counseling programs at 6 South University campuses and she is Program Director for the Clinical Mental Health Counseling program at South University in Columbia, South Carolina where she oversees faculty, adjunct faculty, and over 125 clinical mental health counseling and professional counseling students. She is also an Associate Professor and has served South University for over 8 years.

Dr. Hamilton is a licensed professional counselor (LPC) and licensed professional counselor supervisor (LPC/S), a licensed addictions counselor (LAC), a national certified counselor (NCC), and an Approved Counselor Supervisor (ACS). She holds a Bachelors of Arts in English and minor in African American Studies from Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. She received her Master of Arts degree in Higher Education/Developmental Studies from the above-mentioned institution.  She holds a PhD in Counselor Education and Supervision from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia. 

Dr. Hamilton is the newly elected President of South Carolina Counseling Association (SCCA) where she has been an active member, presenter, and board member for over 20 years. She is also an active member of American Counseling Association (ACA) and American Counselor Education and Supervision (ACES). 

As a counselor educator, Dr. Hamilton has taught counseling courses at several universities and practiced counseling at several agencies. She has had a host of mental health experiences ranging as a mental health counselor for severally mentally ill persons, counseling children and adolescents, and counseling drug and alcohol adolescents and adults. Her fondness for teaching and working with students in the counseling field goes hand in hand as teacher and practitioner. 

Dr. Hamilton’s specialty courses are psychodiagnostics, psychopathology and theories of counseling. Her specialized interest is finding a theoretical approach that coincides with effective counseling outcomes and the effectiveness of the successfulness of the biopsychosocial model. 

Dr. Hamilton lives in Blythewood, South Carolina with her husband of 17 years, Psychotherapist and Minister, Mr. George D. Hamilton, II, and their two daughters, Gabriella (14) and Camille (12). She is a long time member of Bethel AME church in Columbia, SC where she is a class leader and stewardess. She is an active member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated, Columbia (SC) Alumnae. Her favorite quote is from Maya Angelou, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Katherine H. DeWitt, PhD

Dr. Katherine DeWitt is an Assistant Professor and the Clinical Coordinator at South University in Columbia, South Carolina. Spending most of her professional life working in higher education as an academic and career counselor, Dr. DeWitt has worked closely with at-risk populations developing programs and resources to help first generation, under represented, and low income- college students persist to graduation and, for many of her students, on to graduate programs.  Dr. DeWitt’s clinical experiences have been working with adolescents in the juvenile justice system, as a case manager and interventionist for teen drug court, and leading parent/family psychoeducational groups as part of a behavior intervention program for Richland County District II schools in Columbia, SC.  Dr. DeWitt’s research interests include Social Media engagement for helping professionals and vicarious trauma experiences and intervention for social service workers.  

Dan Lawther, PhD
Assistant Professor, Clinical Mental Health Counseling Program

Dr. Lawther’s background and experience are diverse.  His BA degree is in History and English from the University of Indianapolis, he holds a MA in General Experimental Psychology from Indiana State University, and a PhD in Counselor Education from the University of South Carolina.

He has variously worked as the Director of Housing at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Director of Cottage Life for the Midlands Center (SCDMR), the Director of the Charleston Evaluation Center (SCDJJ), Psychologist III for the Intensive Behavior Modification Program (SCDJJ), Assistant Coordinator for the Intensive Care Units (SCDJJ), Director of Staff Development (SCDJJ), and Training Director for First Corrections Corporation.  He has previous teaching experience at Limestone College and Webster University before beginning employment with South University.  Dr. Lawther is coauthor of “Institutional Programs” in L. Villeponteau and D. Kirkpatrick (Eds) The Correctional Learning System.

Dr. Lawther’s major area of interest has been developing programs for the oppositional and conduct disturbed adolescent.  To that end, he has presented programs for the Southern States Correctional Association and consulted with various program entities in Arizona, Alabama, Georgia, and the US Virgin Islands, St. Croix.