What Does a Mental Health Professional Do?

In this section, we take a look at the annual salaries of other professions. Take family therapist for example. On average, the family therapists annual salary is $1,655 higher than what mental health professionals make on average every year.

Even though mental health professionals and family therapists have vast differences in their careers, a few of the skills required to do both jobs are similar. For example, both careers require social work, patients, and clinical supervision in the day-to-day roles.

There are some key differences in responsibilities as well. For example, a 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 how truly different these two careers really are.

Family therapists tend to make the most money in the health care industry by averaging a salary of $50,267. In contrast, mental health professionals make the biggest average salary of $49,393 in the finance industry.

The education levels that family therapists earn is a bit different than that of 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.

The next role we're going to look at is the clinician profession. Typically, this position earns a higher pay. In fact, they earn a $11,031 higher salary than mental health professionals per year.

Not everything about these jobs is different. Take their skills, for example. Mental health professionals and clinicians both include similar skills like "social work," "patients," and "clinical supervision" on their resumes.

While some skills are similar in these professions, other skills aren't so similar. For example, several resumes showed us that mental health professional responsibilities requires skills like "cpr," "excellent interpersonal," "taking care," and "mental health treatment." But a clinician might use skills, such as, "patient care," "mental illness," "clinical services," and "treatment services."

On the topic of education, 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.

The third profession we take a look at is alcohol and drug counselor. On an average scale, these workers bring in lower salaries than mental health professionals. In fact, they make a $3,361 lower salary per year.

While looking through the resumes of several mental health professionals and alcohol and drug counselors we discovered that both professions have similar skills. These similarities include skills such as "social work," "patients," and "clinical documentation," but they differ when it comes to other required skills.

As mentioned, these two careers differ between other skills that are required for performing the work exceedingly well. For example, gathering from mental health professionals resumes, they are more likely to have skills like "cpr," "excellent interpersonal," "clinical supervision," and "mental health." But a alcohol and drug counselor might have skills like "substance abuse treatment," "treatment services," "asam," and "discharge summaries."

Interestingly enough, alcohol and drug counselors earn the most pay in the professional industry, where they command an average salary of $44,333. As mentioned previously, mental health professionals highest annual salary comes from the finance industry with an average salary of $49,393.

When it comes to education, alcohol and drug counselors tend to earn lower education levels than 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.

The fourth career we look at typically earns lower pay than mental health professionals. On average, program counselors earn a difference of $5,299 lower per year.

According to resumes from both mental health professionals and program counselors, some of the skills necessary to complete the responsibilities of each role are similar. These skills include "social work," "patients," and "cpr. "

Each job requires different skills like "excellent interpersonal," "clinical supervision," "clinical documentation," and "mental health," which might show up on a mental health professional resume. Whereas program counselor might include skills like "community integration," "medication administration," "behavioral interventions," and "physical disabilities."

Program counselors earn a higher salary in the health care industry with an average of $41,845. Whereas, mental health professionals earn the highest salary in the finance industry.

The average resume of program counselors showed that they earn lower levels of education to mental health professionals. So much so that the likelihood of them earning a Master's Degree is 18.1% less. Additionally, they're less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree by 0.3%.