What Does a Mental Health Therapist Do?

We looked at the average mental health therapist annual salary and compared it with the average of a clinician. Generally speaking, clinicians receive $9,891 higher pay than mental health therapists per year.

Even though mental health therapists and clinicians 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 mental health in the day-to-day roles.

There are some key differences in responsibilities as well. For example, a mental health therapist responsibilities require skills like "community services," "excellent interpersonal," "dsm," and "treatment modalities." Meanwhile a typical clinician has skills in areas such as "patient care," "individual therapy," "treatment services," and "risk assessments." This difference in skills reveals how truly different these two careers really are.

On average, clinicians reach lower levels of education than mental health therapists. Clinicians are 8.1% less likely to earn a Master's Degree and 0.8% more likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.

Next up, we have the licensed professional counselor profession to look over. This career brings along a higher average salary when compared to a mental health therapist annual salary. In fact, licensed professional counselors salary difference is $44,416 higher than the salary of mental health therapists per year.

Not everything about these jobs is different. Take their skills, for example. Mental health therapists and licensed professional counselors both include similar skills like "social work," "patients," and "mental health" 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 therapist responsibilities requires skills like "foster care," "community services," "excellent interpersonal," and "dsm." But a licensed professional counselor might use skills, such as, "lpc," "real estate," "individual therapy," and "hipaa."

On average, licensed professional counselors earn a higher salary than mental health therapists. There are industries that support higher salaries in each profession respectively. Interestingly enough, licensed professional counselors earn the most pay in the real estate industry with an average salary of $99,425. Whereas, mental health therapists have higher paychecks in the non profits industry where they earn an average of $53,528.

On the topic of education, licensed professional counselors earn similar levels of education than mental health therapists. In general, they're 1.1% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 0.8% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.

The third profession we take a look at is counselor/art therapist. On an average scale, these workers bring in higher salaries than mental health therapists. In fact, they make a $29,158 higher salary per year.

While looking through the resumes of several mental health therapists and counselor/art therapists we discovered that both professions have similar skills. These similarities include skills such as "social work," "patients," and "mental health," but they differ when it comes to other required skills.

There are many key differences between these two careers as shown by resumes from each profession. Some of those differences include the skills required to complete responsibilities within each role. As an example of this, a mental health therapist is likely to be skilled in "foster care," "rehabilitation," "community services," and "excellent interpersonal," while a typical counselor/art therapist is skilled in "diagnosis," "family therapy," "behavioral health," and "individual therapy."

Counselor/art therapists are known to earn similar educational levels when compared to mental health therapists. Additionally, they're 4.5% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree, and 0.6% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.

Primary therapists tend to earn a higher pay than mental health therapists by about $9,567 per year.

While their salaries may vary, mental health therapists and primary therapists both use similar skills to perform their jobs. Resumes from both professions include skills like "social work," "patients," and "group therapy sessions. "

While some skills are shared by these professions, there are some differences to note. "mental health," "foster care," "rehabilitation," and "community services" are skills that have shown up on mental health therapists resumes. Additionally, primary therapist uses skills like excellent organizational, patient care, treatment plan reviews, and relapse prevention on their resumes.

Now, let's take a closer look at the financials in each career. The finance industry tends to pay more for primary therapists with an average of $61,326. While the highest mental health therapist annual salary comes from the non profits industry.

Primary therapists reach similar levels of education when compared to mental health therapists. The difference is that they're 0.3% more likely to earn a Master's Degree more, and 0.4% more likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.