What does a licensed psychologist do?
A licensed psychologist specializes in diagnosing and treating psychological and behavioral issues. They may work in medical facilities with in-patient or out-patient services, collaborating with other medical experts as needed. Their responsibilities include studying a patient's medical history, conducting initial assessments and examinations, facilitating interviews and therapy sessions, developing care and intervention procedures, and monitoring patients' progress. Furthermore, as a licensed psychologist, it is essential to coordinate with families and guardians, helping them understand and deal with the effects of mental illness in a family.
Licensed psychologist responsibilities
Here are examples of responsibilities from real licensed psychologist resumes:
- Provide crisis intervention, cognitive-behavioral base individual and group therapy to patients.
- Assist staff in restructuring APA accredit internship program.
- Practice according to ethical guidelines and codes establish by APA.
- Conduct individual, couple, family, and DBT group psychotherapy.
- Engage in multidisciplinary team to assist in IEP development and review.
- Assist in teaching staff members basic DBT and implementing DBT on unit.
- Provide case management and other support services, such as IEP advocacy.
- Facilitate groups addressing emotional regulation skills, ADHD symptoms, and past trauma.
- Assess clients for AD/HD, learning disorders, developmental disorders, autism spectrum disorder, academic difficulties, and emotional difficulties.
- Work effectively as a member of several different interdisciplinary care teams, e.g., epilepsy, autism spectrum, cerebral palsy.
- Administer assessments: ADHD, personality, pastoral/missionarycandidate, psycho-educational.
- Provide psychological assessment and treatment to individuals in long-term care and short-term rehabilitation facilities.
- Conduct psychological evaluations for all populations with diverse psychological issues including patients seeking gastric bypass surgery.
- Create CBT treatment plans and homework assignments.
- Participate in psycho-educational groups about PTSD.
Licensed psychologist skills and personality traits
We calculated that 15% of Licensed Psychologists are proficient in Patients, Crisis Intervention, and Psychological Services. They’re also known for soft skills such as Analytical skills, Communication skills, and Integrity.
We break down the percentage of Licensed Psychologists that have these skills listed on their resume here:
- Patients, 15%
Registered Psychologist Hired to assist psychologist in delivering psychotherapy to patients in residential care facilities.
- Crisis Intervention, 12%
Conducted crisis interventions and trained all residential staff.
- Psychological Services, 9%
Provide comprehensive psychological services to geriatric individuals within nursing home, rehabilitation, and assisted living facilitates.
- Family Therapy, 7%
Provide individual clinical psychological out-patient services for adolescent and adult mental health/drug and alcohol population, and marriage and family therapy.
- Individual Therapy, 6%
Provide individual therapy treating various eating disorders, problematic substance use and mental health utilizing ACT and Motivational Interviewing approaches.
- Developmental Disabilities, 6%
Offered assessment and traditional psychotherapy for individuals residing in skilled care settings and adults with developmental disabilities
Common skills that a licensed psychologist uses to do their job include "patients," "crisis intervention," and "psychological services." You can find details on the most important licensed psychologist responsibilities below.
Analytical skills. One of the key soft skills for a licensed psychologist to have is analytical skills. You can see how this relates to what licensed psychologists do because "psychologists must examine the information they collect and draw logical conclusions." Additionally, a licensed psychologist resume shows how licensed psychologists use analytical skills: "implement and design applied behavioral analysis treatment programs for children with autism and other related disorders. "
Communication skills. Another essential skill to perform licensed psychologist duties is communication skills. Licensed psychologists responsibilities require that "psychologists must have strong communication skills because they spend much of their time listening to and speaking with patients or describing their research." Licensed psychologists also use communication skills in their role according to a real resume snippet: "facilitated communication between disciplines by attending nursing cross-shift reports and relaying information between physician, social work, and nursing staff. "
Integrity. This is an important skill for licensed psychologists to perform their duties. For an example of how licensed psychologist responsibilities depend on this skill, consider that "psychologists must keep patients’ problems in confidence, and patients must be able to trust psychologists’ expertise in treating sensitive problems." This excerpt from a resume also shows how vital it is to everyday roles and responsibilities of a licensed psychologist: "practice according to ethical guidelines and codes established by apa. ".
Interpersonal skills. licensed psychologist responsibilities often require "interpersonal skills." The duties that rely on this skill are shown by the fact that "psychologists study and help individuals, so they must be able to work well with clients, patients, and other professionals." This resume example shows what licensed psychologists do with interpersonal skills on a typical day: "provide staff training in areas of interpersonal skills, suicide prevention, behavior rating program, and behavior management. "
Patience. A commonly-found skill in licensed psychologist job descriptions, "patience" is essential to what licensed psychologists do. Licensed psychologist responsibilities rely on this skill because "psychologists must demonstrate patience, because conducting research or treating patients may take a long time." You can also see how licensed psychologist duties rely on patience in this resume example: "interviewed patients and their families to collect full information on patience's case. "
Problem-solving skills. Lastly, "problem-solving skills" is an important element of what a licensed psychologist does. Licensed psychologist responsibilities require this skill because "psychologists need problem-solving skills to collect information, design research, evaluate programs, and find treatments or solutions to mental and behavioral problems." This resume example highlights how licensed psychologist duties rely on this skill: "provide treatment planning, administer bio-psychosocial assessments, individual supportive solution-focused psychotherapy and group therapy. "
The three companies that hire the most licensed psychologists are:
- Thriveworks763 licensed psychologists jobs
- Vida Health46 licensed psychologists jobs
- New York State Restaurant Association34 licensed psychologists jobs
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Compare different licensed psychologists
Licensed psychologist vs. Eating disorder specialist
Clinical fellows are doctoral-level health professionals whose interest focuses on biomedical research. They take part in protocol-based clinical research and laboratory research. Their significant role in research leads them to a higher academic degree. Usually, they conduct research for 2-3 hours. They have completed their general residency, and train in health specialties like oncology or cardiology. They examine and treat patients, execute medical procedures, and complete patient charts.
While similarities exist, there are also some differences between licensed psychologists and eating disorder specialist. For instance, licensed psychologist responsibilities require skills such as "patients," "psychological services," "developmental disabilities," and "autism." Whereas a eating disorder specialist is skilled in "community organizations," "community resources," "substance abuse treatment," and "health professionals." This is part of what separates the two careers.
The education levels that eating disorder specialists earn slightly differ from licensed psychologists. In particular, eating disorder specialists are 6.6% more likely to graduate with a Master's Degree than a licensed psychologist. Additionally, they're 33.9% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Licensed psychologist vs. Clinical fellow
A Psychotherapist's responsibility is to help clients who suffer from symptoms like depression, anxiety, and other behavioral problems. They work with individuals, couples, and families.
While some skills are similar in these professions, other skills aren't so similar. For example, resumes show us that licensed psychologist responsibilities requires skills like "psychological services," "developmental disabilities," "psychological tests," and "clinical services." But a clinical fellow might use other skills in their typical duties, such as, "veterans," "surgery," "patient care," and "social work."
Clinical fellows may earn a lower salary than licensed psychologists, but clinical fellows earn the most pay in the health care industry with an average salary of $72,607. On the other hand, licensed psychologists receive higher pay in the health care industry, where they earn an average salary of $89,569.Average education levels between the two professions vary. Clinical fellows tend to reach higher levels of education than licensed psychologists. In fact, they're 12.9% more likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 33.9% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.What technology do you think will become more important and prevalent for licensed psychologists in the next 3-5 years?
Dr. Jim Sliwinski Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Psychology, Defiance College
Licensed psychologist vs. Psychotherapist
Clinical psychology interns are responsible for assisting the clinical psychology staff by utilizing their academic knowledge to practical applications. A clinical psychology intern observes the daily operations in a health care facility, shadows medical staff, and prepares reports for clinical psychology processes or psychological research. The interns perform administrative and clerical duties as needed, including responding to the patients' inquiries and concerns, joining psychology professionals on conducting counseling and therapies, and interpreting patients' behaviors and practices.
There are many key differences between these two careers, including some of the skills required to perform responsibilities within each role. For example, a licensed psychologist is likely to be skilled in "psychological services," "family therapy," "developmental disabilities," and "autism," while a typical psychotherapist is skilled in "social work," "community resources," "home health," and "treatment modalities."
Psychotherapists make a very good living in the professional industry with an average annual salary of $67,081. On the other hand, licensed psychologists are paid the highest salary in the health care industry, with average annual pay of $89,569.Most psychotherapists achieve a higher degree level compared to licensed psychologists. For example, they're 33.9% more likely to graduate with a Master's Degree, and 32.4% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Licensed psychologist vs. Clinical psychology internship
Types of licensed psychologist
Updated January 8, 2025
