A mental health professional can be a community service provider or a health care practitioner offering services for treating mental disorders or improving other people’s mental health. Mental health Professionals can either be stationary or mobile. The permanent ones are those you meet at mental health or psychiatric hospitals, while the mobile are visiting homes to provide personalised psychiatric services to their clients.
Mental health professionals are of different types:
Psychiatrist
It is about the only professional specialising in mental health care, and they are equally trained to prescribe drugs for treating or managing mental health issues. A psychiatrist is a medical practitioner who gets qualified in the mental health aspect of medication. A few of the psychiatrists can prescribe for psychotherapy in the severe health conditions of the patients.
Psychologist
It is a particular professional that specialises in psychotherapy. He can have a doctorate, like Psy D. or Ph. D, with the Psy. D. degree is focusing on the clinical practice of mental health. Before he can enter into practice as a psychologist, the doctor or clinician is expected to have thousands of hours of clinical experience. A psychologist is well versed in psychotherapy, psychological assessment, diagnosis and so on. Psychologists are not allowed or trained to prescribe any medication to mentally ill patients.
Clinical Social Worker
Before becoming a certified clinical social worker, the individual would have completed his Master’s degree in Social Work (M.S.W.). He will equally bear the LCSW designation before he can practice psychotherapy. LCSW stands for a Licensed Counselor of Social Work. In some cases, the professional is expected to undergo thousands of hours of clinical practice. In the course of the training, a Clinical Social Worker will go through various courses, including Social Work and Psychotherapy.
Psychiatric Nurse
A psychiatric Nurse must have graduated as a Registered Nurse (R.N.) before specialising in this area. He or she is also expected to undergo training in various forms of psychotherapy and psychiatry. In most instances, this professional is supposed to exposed to a minimum of 500 hours of clinical experience. At times, the psychiatric Nurse is permitted to prescribe drugs to a person with a mental health condition just like psychiatrists.
Marriage & Family Therapist
The professional is expected to have a Master’s degree, but this is not always the case in certain jurisdictions. He or she is equally likely to have about 500 hours of clinical experience. His or her job involves counselling families and helping them to make their marriages work.