1. California State University - Long Beach
Long Beach, CA • Private
In-State Tuition
$6,798
Enrollment
31,503
A counselor is a professional who is in charge of using counseling methods to help people overcome and manage their emotional and mental health. To accomplish this, you must assess your patients through comprehensive conversations, observations, and interviews to find appropriate tests or examinations. After the completion of your tests on patients, you will diagnose the patients' mental and emotional disorders to determine methods that would be necessary for them. Primarily, your job involves helping your patients. Therefore, you are allowed to develop effective treatment plans, including medication, counseling, and other services. One major thing that will help you is to work closely with your patients and develop treatment goals.
As a counselor, you must check if the treatment plan is helping your patient by engaging in a regular discussion of the treatment plan. By doing this, you will be able to identify faults and room for improvement. In the process of counseling, patients may be in uncomfortable situations. Nonetheless, you must find a way to recommend appropriate coping mechanisms to help through rough times. For accountability's sake, you must keep a record of patients' progress and change in the treatment plan.
As a counselor, your sense of humor is very important, especially in feeling, reacting, and talking. Some skills include excellent communication skills and time management skills. The mean salary of a counselor yearly is $75,000. A counselor must possess a bachelor's degree in Psychology or other related fields.
