What does a mental health professional do?
The duties of a mental health professional will revolve around observing the behavior of patients. They are responsible for knowing their medical history, conducting consultations and assessments, diagnosing conditions, devising particular treatments and prescribing medication, and providing emotional support to patients. Furthermore, a mental health professional must coordinate with families and other mental health experts to monitor patients' behavior and develop care plans to help them in their road to recovery.
Mental health professional responsibilities
Here are examples of responsibilities from real mental health professional resumes:
- Lead training for staff on specific counseling interventions for children with autism spectrum disorders.
- Monitor and manage preventative behavior with 2-3 MHA'S team and carry out a constructive routine with patients.
- Provide individual treatment using CBT, DBT and motivational interviewing techniques to detainees with mental health and/or behavioral concerns.
- Develop curriculum for and facilitate mental health groups including DBT education.
- Provide comprehensive, recovery orient mental health skill building and support to patients with psychiatric disorder, including co-occurring diagnosis
- Work with children and families as a psycho-social rehabilitation provider and qualify medical health assistant.
- Coordinate services for adults and children living with intellectual/developmental disabilities, autism, and severe mental illness.
- Develop psycho-social rehabilitation curriculum and provide rehabilitation and counseling, including drug rehabilitation and counseling, to clients.
- Facilitate and conduct weekly housing meetings with security personnel to assist in housing management and care of identify patients.
- Monitor rehabilitative service providers on a regular basis to assess and ensure compliance with establish RFP and Medicaid standards.
- Provide administrative oversight to several projects, including a provider incentive program and the drafting of the Medicaid request for qualifications.
- Conduct training sessions on work ethics such as sexual harassment, equal rights, and HIPPA.
- Document client information, accurately indicating suicidal precautions, sleep flow and restraints.
- Communicate with various individuals with personality disorders using redirection and apply physical restraints if need.
- Document and bill for services in accordance with Medi-Cal regulations.
Mental health professional skills and personality traits
We calculated that 20% of Mental Health Professionals are proficient in Social Work, Patients, and CPR. They’re also known for soft skills such as Communication skills, Emotional skills, and Interpersonal skills.
We break down the percentage of Mental Health Professionals that have these skills listed on their resume here:
- Social Work, 20%
Collaborate with treatment team with clinical social workers, psychiatrists, psychologists, and rehabilitation counselors to develop individualized treatment plans.
- Patients, 19%
Established therapy Offered patients instruction in self-care, receptive and expressive language, and self-direction, resulting in improved self-sufficiency.
- CPR, 7%
Related capabilities: include Crisis Prevention Intervention training and CPR
- Excellent Interpersonal, 6%
Instructed group meetings, applied excellent interpersonal and communication skills.
- Clinical Supervision, 5%
Receive monthly clinical supervision as identified in North Carolina Registered Mental health Intern guidelines.
- Clinical Documentation, 5%
Review clinical documentation of Associate and Paraprofessional staff for quality assurance and effective skill building techniques.
Common skills that a mental health professional uses to do their job include "social work," "patients," and "cpr." You can find details on the most important mental health professional responsibilities below.
Communication skills. To carry out their duties, the most important skill for a mental health professional to have is communication skills. Their role and responsibilities require that "clients talk to social workers about challenges in their lives." Mental health professionals often use communication skills in their day-to-day job, as shown by this real resume: "participate in on-going communication with the correctional health clinical teams and attend staff meetings for case reviews as requested. "
Interpersonal skills. This is an important skill for mental health professionals to perform their duties. For an example of how mental health professional responsibilities depend on this skill, consider that "social workers must be able to work with different groups of people." This excerpt from a resume also shows how vital it is to everyday roles and responsibilities of a mental health professional: "counseled clients experiencing such mental health issues as affective and anxiety disorders, as well as those experiencing interpersonal difficulties. ".
Organizational skills. A big part of what mental health professionals do relies on "organizational skills." You can see how essential it is to mental health professional responsibilities because "social workers must help and manage multiple clients, often assisting with their paperwork or documenting their treatment." Here's an example of how this skill is used from a resume that represents typical mental health professional tasks: "possess superior organizational skills in regards to keeping client records and pertinent clinical documentation. "
Problem-solving skills. Another crucial skill for a mental health professional to carry out their responsibilities is "problem-solving skills." A big part of what mental health professionals relies on this skill, since "social workers must analyze their clients’ complex situations and develop practical solutions." How this skill relates to mental health professional duties can be seen in an example from a mental health professional resume snippet: "lead group and one-on-one counseling sessions on conflict resolution and mental health crisis management. "
The three companies that hire the most mental health professionals are:
- Wellpath221 mental health professionals jobs
- Wexford Health Sources100 mental health professionals jobs
- Kaiser Permanente75 mental health professionals jobs
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Compare different mental health professionals
Mental health professional vs. Family therapist
A Family Therapist works with couples and families to help ameliorate marital and family issues. They can work in hospitals, treatment programs, government agencies, health organizations, and private practices.
There are some key differences in the responsibilities of each position. For example, mental health professional responsibilities require skills like "cpr," "excellent interpersonal," "taking care," and "mental health treatment." Meanwhile a typical family therapist has skills in areas such as "group therapy," "child abuse," "fft," and "family systems." This difference in skills reveals the differences in what each career does.
Family therapists tend to make the most money working in the health care industry, where they earn an average salary of $50,267. In contrast, mental health professionals make the biggest average salary, $49,393, in the finance industry.The education levels that family therapists earn slightly differ from mental health professionals. In particular, family therapists are 13.3% more likely to graduate with a Master's Degree than a mental health professional. Additionally, they're 0.5% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Mental health professional vs. Clinician
A clinician specializes in providing diagnosis, treatment, and direct care to patients with different illnesses. A clinician's duties mainly revolve around conducting extensive research and analysis, providing medical care through various therapies, and improving one's overall health condition. Furthermore, a clinician must obtain and analyze a patient's complete medical history, provide diagnostic tests, always monitor the effects of treatment on a patient, provide prognosis and consider the overall impact on a patient's health and well-being.
While some skills are similar in these professions, other skills aren't so similar. For example, resumes show us that mental health professional responsibilities requires skills like "cpr," "excellent interpersonal," "taking care," and "mental health treatment." But a clinician might use other skills in their typical duties, such as, "patient care," "mental illness," "clinical services," and "treatment services."
Clinicians earn higher levels of education than mental health professionals in general. They're 7.2% more likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 0.5% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.What technology do you think will become more important and prevalent for mental health professionals in the next 3-5 years?
Virginia Schwindt
MSW Field Director/Associate Professor, Union University
Mental health professional vs. Alcohol and drug counselor
A drug & alcohol counselor treats addicts in either one-on-one or group settings. They help by educating and developing possible treatment plans for patients to support them in coping with their addictive personalities. A drug and alcohol counselor will evaluate to determine the progress has been successfully made towards recovery. They help patients better understand and overcome their addictions. Counselors help through offering support, rehabilitation, and guidance by using various techniques. Drug & alcohol counselors seek to help an addict find the source of their addiction.
The required skills of the two careers differ considerably. For example, mental health professionals are more likely to have skills like "cpr," "excellent interpersonal," "clinical supervision," and "mental health." But a alcohol and drug counselor is more likely to have skills like "substance abuse treatment," "treatment services," "asam," and "discharge summaries."
Alcohol and drug counselors earn the best pay in the professional industry, where they command an average salary of $44,333. Mental health professionals earn the highest pay from the finance industry, with an average salary of $49,393.When it comes to education, alcohol and drug counselors tend to earn lower degree levels compared to mental health professionals. In fact, they're 11.4% less likely to earn a Master's Degree, and 0.2% less likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.Mental health professional vs. Program counselor
A Program Counselor is an essential part of a school's faculty. It's the counselor's responsibility to ensure that students are benefiting from the school's educational curriculum. This person is also tasked to help students resolve issues and problems that may hinder any educational progress. They are also part of the disciplinary team intended to instill good morals, ethics, and decency in students. The Program Counselor is one of the teacher or professor who has expertise or has a high educational degree in a particular subject or field.
Types of mental health professional
Updated January 8, 2025
