Psychology

Before you consider degree options for you, let’s first discuss whether this profession would be a good fit for you. Therapists are professionals who engage in the diagnosis and treatment of mental health disorders. Many people will say they want to be a therapist because they might be the person that everyone comes to for help/advice and support. Perhaps they are good at listening to others. Perhaps they also have a lot of empathy. These are great traits to have, but do not necessarily equate to being an effective therapist.

One of the greatest misconceptions about therapists is that they give direct advice. Therapists are trained in diagnosing and treating mental health disorders and a range of problems that interfere with someone’s day to day life. They are specifically trained not to give out direct advice, as direct advice is not very effective in creating lasting change for clients. Instead, they use a variety of techniques to help guide the client into making healthier decisions for themselves. They remain neutral (meaning, they don’t weigh in with their personal thoughts or opinions), and they typically do not share much about themselves (in order to keep the focus on the client).

In addition, many individuals want to become a therapist because they have problems of their own that they want to figure out. Although it is fine to have your own, personal struggles when training to be a therapist, the training is focused on helping others, not helping yourself. An effective therapist will be able to remove their own experiences from the therapy experience in order to focus on their client and how to best help their client. An effective therapist is aware of their own experiences and biases and how that may impact their work with their client, and so they must work even harder to ensure that these biases don’t negatively impact the work with their client.

Here are some qualities that would make someone more effective as a therapist:

• Empathy and listening skills
  • As stated above, these are naturally important. However, too much empathy can be problematic if you begin to constantly think about all of the sad/upsetting things your clients have told you about outside of session. Effective therapists have the ability to set their work aside and focus on other aspects of their life when they are not seeing clients.
• Organizational skills
  • Being a therapist involves keeping track of a number of clients, documentation, appointments, etc.
• Ability to set boundaries
  • When you are a therapist, you have to learn to set firm boundaries with others so that you don’t risk “burning out.” Setting boundaries means doing things like being firm with appointment times, not taking on more than you can handle, being comfortable saying “no”, telling clients you can’t see them outside of your available times, etc.
• Self-care skills
  • Being a therapist can be mentally exhausting. You are spending the day being very in-tune with your clients and spending a lot of that time being highly empathic. You hear some very distressing and traumatic things that have happened. To be an effective therapist, you need to know how to take care of yourself outside of your job. Taking care of yourself might mean having a good support network of people, doing fun things outside of work, engaging in relaxation techniques, etc.
•  Mental health stability & self-awareness
  • Even though it is okay to have your own problems if you are a therapist, you should be well aware of the impact these problems might have on your clients and get help of your own if you need to. Being as stable as possible for your clients is necessary if you want to provide the best care. The best thing you can do for your clients is being self-aware and understanding the biases and background that you might bring to the therapeutic relationship and the effect it might have on your clients.
• Ethical standards & confidentiality
  • Being a therapist means you hear a lot of fascinating things about lots of different people. You can’t go around and talk about all of these things with everyone you know just because they are interesting. You have to protect your clients’ confidentiality and your clients’ secrets.
• Critical thinking skills
  • Being a therapist involves having to constantly stay attuned to small changes in what your clients might be telling you, and trying to constantly figure out why your clients might be saying/behaving in the way that they are. It is a constant scenario of hypothesis-testing, in which you may have hypotheses as to why your clients are engaging in certain behaviors and then use therapy to test out your hypotheses.
• Tolerance
  • As a therapist, you will hear things that your clients have done that you may or may not morally/ethically agree with. Your clients are coming to you to get a neutral perspective that is non-judgmental, so it is your job to ensure you are acting in such a way regardless of how you feel about what they did. Making a client feel shame and embarrassment for something will only make them feel worse and could create more harm for the patient.
• Ability to handle high-stress situations
  • Depending on the population you end up working with, you may have exposure to high-crisis situations with clients. For example, a client who you have worked with for some time who recently attempted suicide. Keeping a level head and helping problem solve and support the client is essential. Effective therapists can manage these high-stress/crisis situations in order to best help their clients.
• Flexibility
  • Effective therapists will challenge their own assumptions over time. They will have the ability to reflect on their own behavior and actions and be able to identify places where they might be stuck with a particular client, places where they may want to change their own behavior to better help their clients, and they will adapt to new findings and techniques in the field. An effective therapist is willing to admit that they may not have approached a particular situation in the best manner or may need help (e.g., feedback from another peer therapist).

OK, so you’ve read this far and still think a therapist career would be a good fit for you. Now let’s discuss the many degree options available to you. Many people do not understand that there are LOTS of degree choices that all produce an end result of working with people as a counselor/therapist. This guide is meant to outline each type of degree you can get, what it stands for, pros/cons to each, and what you might need to do to get into that career.