Example Career: Mental Health Counselors

Career Description

Counsel with emphasis on prevention. Work with individuals and groups to promote optimum mental and emotional health. May help individuals deal with issues associated with addictions and substance abuse; family, parenting and marital problems; stress management; self-esteem; and aging.

What Job Titles Mental Health Counselors Might Have

• Clinician
• Counselor
• Mental Health Counselor
• Therapist

What Mental Health Counselors Do

• Maintain confidentiality of records relating to clients' treatment.
• Encourage clients to express their feelings and discuss what is happening in their lives, helping them to develop insight into themselves or their relationships.
• Collect information about clients through interviews, observation, or tests.
• Assess patients for risk of suicide attempts.
• Fill out and maintain client-related paperwork, including federal- and state-mandated forms, client diagnostic records, and progress notes.
• Prepare and maintain all required treatment records and reports.
• Counsel clients or patients, individually or in group sessions, to assist in overcoming dependencies, adjusting to life, or making changes.
• Guide clients in the development of skills or strategies for dealing with their problems.
• Perform crisis interventions with clients.
• Develop and implement treatment plans based on clinical experience and knowledge.
• Evaluate clients' physical or mental condition, based on review of client information.
• Act as client advocates to coordinate required services or to resolve emergency problems in crisis situations.
• Modify treatment activities or approaches as needed to comply with changes in clients' status.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of counseling programs on clients' progress in resolving identified problems and moving towards defined objectives.
• Meet with families, probation officers, police, or other interested parties to exchange necessary information during the treatment process.
• Discuss with individual patients their plans for life after leaving therapy.
• Collaborate with other staff members to perform clinical assessments or develop treatment plans.
• Counsel family members to assist them in understanding, dealing with, or supporting clients or patients.
• Monitor clients' use of medications.
• Plan, organize, or lead structured programs of counseling, work, study, recreation, or social activities for clients.
• Learn about new developments in counseling by reading professional literature, attending courses and seminars, or establishing and maintaining contact with other social service agencies.
• Refer patients, clients, or family members to community resources or to specialists as necessary.
• Gather information about community mental health needs or resources that could be used in conjunction with therapy.
• Supervise other counselors, social service staff, assistants, or graduate students.
• Plan or conduct programs to prevent substance abuse or improve community health or counseling services.
• Coordinate or direct employee workshops, courses, or training about mental health issues.

What Mental Health Counselors Should Be Good At

• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
• Written Comprehension - The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
• Written Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
• Inductive Reasoning - The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
• Deductive Reasoning - The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
• Speech Recognition - The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
• Speech Clarity - The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
• Fluency of Ideas - The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
• Category Flexibility - The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
• Information Ordering - The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).

What Mental Health Counselors Should Be Interested In

• Social - Social occupations frequently involve working with, communicating with, and teaching people. These occupations often involve helping or providing service to others.
• Investigative - Investigative occupations frequently involve working with ideas, and require an extensive amount of thinking. These occupations can involve searching for facts and figuring out problems mentally.

What Mental Health Counselors Need to Learn

• Psychology - Knowledge of human behavior and performance; individual differences in ability, personality, and interests; learning and motivation; psychological research methods; and the assessment and treatment of behavioral and affective disorders.
• Therapy and Counseling - Knowledge of principles, methods, and procedures for diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of physical and mental dysfunctions, and for career counseling and guidance.
• Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
• Sociology and Anthropology - Knowledge of group behavior and dynamics, societal trends and influences, human migrations, ethnicity, cultures and their history and origins.
• English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
• Education and Training - Knowledge of principles and methods for curriculum and training design, teaching and instruction for individuals and groups, and the measurement of training effects.
• Clerical - Knowledge of administrative and clerical procedures and systems such as word processing, managing files and records, stenography and transcription, designing forms, and other office procedures and terminology.
• Philosophy and Theology - Knowledge of different philosophical systems and religions. This includes their basic principles, values, ethics, ways of thinking, customs, practices, and their impact on human culture.
• Law and Government - Knowledge of laws, legal codes, court procedures, precedents, government regulations, executive orders, agency rules, and the democratic political process.
• Administration and Management - Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.