Home Terms of Service Privacy Policy Site Map Subscribe to the GoodTherapy blog. Therapists can help someone better understand and cope with thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. They can also offer guidance and help improve a person's ability to achieve their goals in life. These mental health professionals can also help evaluate and diagnose mental health conditions.
A mental health counselor evaluates and treats mental and emotional health disorders, relationship problems, and life challenges. Through various psychotherapy methods, counselors work with patients to develop significant behavioral changes. They also offer survival strategies to overcome life's difficulties. They are trained to assess a person's mental health through clinical interviews, psychological evaluations, and tests.
Adapting to new living arrangements, managing with limited income and dealing with chronic physical illnesses contribute to the growing mental health crisis among older people. While mental health counselors tend to earn less than psychologists, this is also a factor that makes them attractive to insurers. On your first office visit, your mental health professional will want to talk to you about why they think you need to go to therapy. Counselors on substance abuse, behavioral disorders and mental health provide treatment and counseling for people who suffer from alcoholism, drug addiction, or other mental or behavioral problems.
To be licensed to practice in their state, mental health counselors must complete a master's program in counseling, which generally lasts two years. There are numerous approaches to psychotherapy, also called psychotherapy, from which mental health professionals draw their treatment practices. A psychiatrist is trained to differentiate mental health problems from other underlying medical conditions that could present with psychiatric symptoms. However, in some cases, mental health counseling is simply recommended to those who express a personal emotional or behavioral problem or who feel they could benefit from the perspective and advice of someone specially trained to mediate and help with mental health.
Often, the problems that clinical mental health counselors help their clients address include substance abuse and behavioral disorders. As a result, healthcare providers, government officials, citizen groups, and other organizations are joining forces to promote outreach to people in need of mental health care. There are many hotlines and other options for people with immediate needs to help a person at risk of harming themselves or others who ask how to find a mental health counselor in my area. If you or a loved one needs support, contact a health care provider about treatment options and if mental health counseling is right for you.
The experience of finding a mental health counselor is “more of an art than a science,” according to Sternlicht. Counselors about substance abuse, behavioral disorders and mental health must be able to remain calm when working with all types of clients, including those who may be distressed or angry. Mental health counselors work with their clients to set goals and develop approaches to address emotional problems, strengthen coping and communication skills, improve self-esteem, promote behavioral changes, and strive to improve mental well-being.
