Mental Health Therapist Job Description

How to Become A Therapist

You need to complete a math degree in counseling or counseling psychology and complete 3,000 hours of training. Then there are two licensure tests, one law and ethics and once you complete all your hours, you need to do it. It includes both ethics questions and also clinical questions.

Working in Private Practice Therapy

You get to do something that's really useful for people's life and it's very fulfilling.

You get to create your own schedule according to what works for you. For example, I structure my day so that I work early in the morning and I'm able to pick up my kids from school. And I have one evening that I work, but there are others that are working just evenings or weekends or both.

Challenges of Private Practice Therapy

So you get you to be the owner of your own schedule. Once you have a set schedule, you have clients at a certain time, it's very hard to suddenly move a client because you have a sick family member child that you need to take care of. Those last minute changes are much more complicated. Sometimes you need to be available for extra sessions. Someone needs extra support and it requires a lot of boundary setting. But sometimes it's harder.

Tips for Prospective Therapists

I definitely believe that it's important to experience your own, to get a feel of how it's like to be a client. Also talk to other people who are in this profession. It's also different if you work in private practice compared to working in an agency. So maybe getting a sense of how it is, maybe talking to people who do either that or the other. The more you talk to people, the better you'll get a sense of how it actually is. 

There are times in the year that clients are seeking more therapy versus others. So if this is the sole income of the household that you rely on, I would definitely get in mind and maybe try to have some sort of reserves on the side and consider the fact that it does fluctuate throughout the year. And it takes time to build some confidence that it will come back even when it's down.