How to become a Therapist
A broad term that can encompass many mental health professionals, such as counselors, social workers, and psychologists-
Who are "therapists?"
But, there are differences in the client populations being served, the types of interventions being offered, and the depth of the issue being addressed.
How does therapy help people?
What is a safe space to explore their thoughts, feelings, behaviors and concerns? The goal of individual therapy is to inspire change and improve the quality of life through self-awareness and self-exploration. Therapy can help people strengthen coping mechanisms, improve self esteem, better manage symptoms of different diagnoses such as depression, anxiety, and overall improve daily functioning.
What is Play Therapy?
Child play therapy is a way of being with the child that honors their unique developmental level and looks for ways of helping in the “language” of the child – play. Licensed mental health professionals and registered play therapists therapeutically use play to help their clients, most often children ages three to 12 years, to better express themselves and resolve their problems.
Play therapy works best when a safe relationship is created between the therapist and client, one in which the latter may freely and naturally express both what pleases and bothers them.
https://www.a4pt.org/page/WhyPlayTherapy
What are the different types of therapy?
What are individual, group, couples, marriage, family?
Types of master's degrees earned to become clinical therapists-
What are master's degrees in counseling, psychology, or social work?
What is confidentiality?
What is the requirement that therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists, and most other mental health professionals protect their client’s privacy by not revealing the contents of therapy?
Confidentiality includes not just the contents of therapy, but often the fact that a client is in therapy. For example, it is common that therapists will not acknowledge their clients if they run into them outside of therapy in an effort to protect client confidentiality. Other ways confidentiality is protected include:
For licensed mental health professionals, confidentiality is protected by state laws and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Therapists who break confidentiality can get in trouble with state licensing boards. They can also be sued by their clients in some cases.
What is Art Therapy?
Art therapy is an integrative mental health and human services profession facilitated by a professional art therapist. Art therapy enriches the lives of individuals, families, and communities through active art-making, creative process, applied psychological theory, and human experience within a psychotherapeutic relationship.
Art therapy supports personal and relational treatment goals as well as community concerns. It improves cognitive and sensorimotor functions, self-esteem and self-awareness, cultivates emotional resilience, promotes insight, enhances social skills, is used to reduce and resolve conflicts and distress, and advance societal and ecological change.
How long are sessions?
What is typically 50 minutes? But, can be anywhere from 30, 45, 60, 90 minutes, or even 2 to 3 hours!
Clinical Psychologist (LCP), Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT), and Professional Counselor (LPC) are all different types of what?
What are licenses?
What is duty to warn?
What is the obligation, defined by the American Psychological Association, of therapists or counselors to warn authorities or another individual directly at risk, when a client threatens to harm an individual or individuals? The expectation that therapists will keep information confidential does not apply when disclosure is necessary to prevent serious foreseeable and imminent harm to a client or other identifiable person.
It serves the purpose of notifying those in a professional context who are capable of doing something about the threat, that they should do something about the threat. The legal obligation arose out of the case of Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California.
This specialty is a practice-based profession that promotes social change, development, cohesion and the empowerment of people and communities. It involves understanding human development and behavior, as well as social, economic and cultural institutions and interactions. This profession focuses on different levels of systems to create change.
What is Termination?
What is the end of the therapeutic relationship? It means a client stops coming to sessions, that they will no longer receive therapy, that they are transitioning to another therapist, are taking a break, or have met their goals.
Therapists meeting regularly with other professionals, sometimes more senior, to discuss casework and other professional issues in a structured way-
Collaboration, Clinical Discussion, or Supervision?
What is supervision?
Where is therapy provided?
Where are office settings, colleges and universities, high schools and grade schools? Through outreach, crisis lines, outpatient, inpatient, tele-therapy. Therapy is provided in many different places.
Mental health professionals trained in psychotherapy and family systems, and licensed to diagnose and treat mental and emotional disorders within the context of marriage, couples and family systems.
Credentials for this specialty are "MFT."
What is Family Therapy?
"MFT" stands for Marriage and Family Therapists
https://www.aamft.org/About_AAMFT/About_Marriage_and_Family_Therapists.aspx
What is Self-Care for therapists?
What are tools to prevent burnout, compassion fatigue, stress, and exhaustion from the demands of the job?
An important skill set therapists possess is tuning into the client's needs or concerns to make informed decisions for them.
T or F
False.
It’s believed clients have the answers already, and therapists help guide and empower clients to find those answers themselves.
What are limits to confidentiality?
What is when a therapist believes a child is in danger, they typically have a legal duty to disclose certain information, even when the child otherwise has a right to confidentiality? For example, mandated reporters must disclose suspected child abuse to child protective services. Likewise, a therapist must act to protect the child if they believe the child may engage in self-harm or hurt others.
Even when a therapist must act to protect a child, the therapist must use a conservative approach, disclosing only that information which is absolutely necessary and disclosing only to the appropriate person or persons. For example, if a therapist fears a child may be planning a school shooting, the therapist may be required to notify police or school authorities. However, the therapist would still be required to protect the confidentiality of other treatment details, such as the child’s sexual orientation or history of abuse.
When a clinician steps in to provide immediate assistance to help remedy a critical situation. Typically, a short term intervention that addresses acute needs and the underlying emotional and psychological elements that caused the event in an attempt to help affected individuals restore their equilibrium and return to a state in which they have the ability to cope.
What is crisis work?
What is Informed Consent?
What is a very important step in which the therapist discusses information with the prospective client so that they can make an informed decision about course of treatment, be aware of their rights, and know the limits of treatment?