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Mental health practitioner resume examples from 2025

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Land interviews using Zippia's AI-powered resume builder.

Updated March 26, 2025
6 min read
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How to write a mental health practitioner resume

Craft a resume summary statement

A resume summary is your opening statement that highlights your strongest skills and top accomplishments. It is your chance to quickly let recruiters know who you are professionally - and why they should hire you for the mental health practitioner role.

Step 1: Start with your professional title, or the one you aspire to.

Step 2: Detail your years of experience in mental health practitioner-related roles and your industry experience.

Step 3: What are your biggest professional wins? Here is your opportunity to highlight your strongest accomplishments by placing them at the start of your resume.

Step 4: Don't forget, your goal is to summarize your experience. Keep it short and sweet, so it's easy for recruiters to quickly understand why you're a great hire.

These tips will help you demonstrate why you are the perfect fit for the mental health practitioner position.

Please upload your resume so Zippia’s job hunt AI can draft a summary statement for you.

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List the right project manager skills

Your Skills section is a place to list all relevant skills and abilities. Here is how to make the most of your skills section and make sure you have the right keywords:

  1. You often need to include the exact keywords from the job description in your resume. Look at the job listing and consider which of the listed skills you have experience with, along with related skills.
  2. Include as many relevant hard skills and soft skills as possible from the listing.
  3. Use the most up to date and accurate terms. Don't forget to be specific.
These five steps should give you a strong elevator pitch and land you some mental health practitioner interviews.

Here are example skills to include in your “Area of Expertise” on a mental health practitioner resume:

  • Social Work
  • Patients
  • Mental Health
  • Family Therapy
  • Rehabilitation
  • In-Home
  • Autism
  • Substance Abuse
  • Therapeutic Interventions
  • Persistent Mental Illness
  • Mental Health Diagnosis
  • Group Therapy Sessions
  • Applied Behavior Analysis
  • Diagnostic Assessments
  • Compassion
  • Individual Therapy
  • SPMI
  • Community Resources
  • Medication Administration
  • Medication Education
  • Mental Health Professionals
  • Adult Clients
  • Mental Health Symptoms
  • Independent Living
  • Therapeutic Services
  • Functional Assessments
  • Crisis Intervention
  • Residential Treatment
  • Medication Management
  • Anger Management

Zippia’s AI can customize your resume for you.

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How to structure your work experience

Next you should include your work experience. Structure your work experience section by listing your most recent experience first, followed by earlier roles in reverse chronological order.

Start with your job title, company name, city, and state on the left. Align dates in month and year format on the right-hand side.

Include only recent, relevant jobs. Avoid including work experience over 20 years to avoid ageism.

Beneath each job, you should have bullet points to emphasize why you're the perfect fit for the mental health practitioner.

How to write mental health practitioner experience bullet points

Remember, your resume is not a list of responsibilities or a job description. This is your chance to show why you're good at your job and what you accomplished.

Use the XYZ formula for your work experience bullet points. Here's how it works:

  • Use strong action verbs like Led, Built, or Optimized.
  • Follow up with numbers when possible to support your results. How much did performance improve? How much revenue did you drive?
  • Wrap it up by explaining the actions you took to achieve the result and how you made an impact.

This creates bullet points that read Achieved X, measured by Y, by doing Z.

Here are effective examples from mental health practitioner resumes:

Work history example #1

Mental Health Assistant

Gateways Hospital and Mental Health Center

  • Facilitated communication between the senior behavioral health unit and referral sources.
  • Acted as a liaison between Emergency Department staff and other hospital departments to resolve issues and concerns.
  • Facilitated Therapeutic Learning Classes in public schools while working in diverse populations.
  • Worked as a MHT in a lock up unit for adults with chronic mental illness.
  • Developed and facilitated three cognitive-behavioral therapy groups: addiction recovery, pain management, and effective communication.

Work history example #2

Mental Health Practitioner

Four Winds Saratoga

  • Assigned as co-leader MHA and Fire Marshal for the evening shift.
  • Practiced a variety of evidence-based treatments including motivational interviewing, cognitive behavioral therapy and trauma-focused therapy.
  • Focused on areas that affected healthcare quality improvement - recommended improvement opportunities.
  • Researched and wrote briefs, reports and position papers on varied health related topics for key healthcare leaders.
  • Counseled patients individual therapy, and family therapy utilizing integrated approaches (motivational interviewing, CBT).

Work history example #3

Mental Health Practitioner

Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare

  • Trained in First Responder CPR and AED emergency measures.
  • Collaborated with members and healthcare providers to facilitate cost-effective access to care and DME.
  • Provided Individual and Family therapy; Treatment of adolescents who suffered trauma.
  • Performed group facilitation, documentation in charts and communication with supervisor and treatment team.
  • Researched and wrote briefs, reports and position papers on varied health related topics for key healthcare leaders.

Work history example #4

Primary Counselor

Narco Freedom

  • Prepared and presented case conferences for caseload maintenance of 50+.
  • Trained in TCI procedures, CPR and First Aid.
  • Admitted and provided care for a wide range of patients diagnosed with depression, bipolar disorder, PTSD, and schizophrenia.
  • Determined level of acuity in psychosis, depression, suicidality, homocidality, and developed community safety plans.
  • Received supervision from MA, CDP Rehabilitation counselor.

Zippia’s AI can customize your resume for you.

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Add an education section to your resume

The education section should display your highest degree first.

Place your education section appropriately on your resume. If you graduated over 5 years ago, this section should be at the bottom of your resume. If you just graduated and lack relevant work experience, the education section should go to the top.

If you have a bachelor's or master's degree, do not list your high school education. If your graduation year is more than 15-20 years ago, it's better not to include dates in this section.

Here are some examples of good education entries for resumes:

Master's Degree in social work

Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ

1998 - 1999

Master's Degree in psychology

Pennsylvania State University, Main, PA

2018 - 2019

Highlight your mental health practitioner certifications on your resume

Certifications can be a crucial part of your resume. Many jobs have required certifications.

Start simple. Include the full name of the certification. It's also good to mention the organization that issued the certification. Next, specify when you obtained the certification.

Here are some of the best certifications to have on mental health practitioner resumes:

  1. Mental Health

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