Counseling Psychologist
Summary
Provide talk therapy to help patients through their emotional challenges.
What does a Counseling Psychologist do?
When it comes to the reasons why someone would need the expertise of a Therapist, most people think extreme mental disorder, like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. True, Counseling Psychologists see patients who are suffering from issues, ranging from anger problems to eating disorders, anxiety to depression. But there are lots of other reasons why people consult them. Counseling Psychologists also have patients who are mentally healthy, but need someone to talk to or to listen to them.
As a Counseling Psychologist, you deal with people of all ages. They come to you in order to improve emotional, social, or developmental issues. Basically, they consult you when something’s not quite right in their lives.
When you get a new client, you begin your first session by discussing what brings them to your office, and what they hope to accomplish. From here, you use a combination of theory, practice, and research to come up with therapy techniques unique to your client and their problems. You set the number of sessions a client needs, and schedule those sessions. Each session is recorded, and you keep detailed records in order to keep track of a client’s progress and see which techniques work best for them.
Counseling psychology is a broad field and as such, you can work in a lot of different places. You might work in a school (especially a university), a nonprofit or government organization, or a hospital. You might also choose to conduct research, or own your own practice.
