Therapist vs clinician

The differences between therapists and clinicians can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. Additionally, a clinician has an average salary of $60,150, which is higher than the $55,943 average annual salary of a therapist.

The top three skills for a therapist include social work, patients and group therapy sessions. The most important skills for a clinician are social work, patients, and patient care.

Therapist vs clinician overview

	Therapist	Clinician
Yearly salary	$55,943	$60,150
Hourly rate	$26.90	$28.92
Growth rate	17%	9%
Number of jobs	159,770	105,023
Job satisfaction	5	-
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 47%	Bachelor's Degree, 49%
Average age	41	45
Years of experience	-	4

What does a therapist do?

A therapist is responsible for improving the patients' health conditions by evaluating their needs and providing physical and mental support. Therapists are licensed, medical professionals who specialize in different areas to perform treatments and bring relief to patients. Some of their duties include diagnosing patient's problems, performing counseling services, monitoring medication progress, customizing therapy activities for pain management, and consulting other health professionals as needed. Therapists must have extensive knowledge with the medical industry to detect patients' conditions easily and provide effective medications.

What does a clinician do?

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.

Therapist vs clinician salary

Therapists and clinicians have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Therapist	Clinician
Average salary	$55,943	$60,150
Salary range	Between $39,000 And $80,000	Between $34,000 And $103,000
Highest paying City	San Francisco, CA	San Francisco, CA
Highest paying state	California	Nevada
Best paying company	Childhelp	Pace University
Best paying industry	Government	-

Differences between therapist and clinician education

There are a few differences between a therapist and a clinician in terms of educational background:

	Therapist	Clinician
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 47%	Bachelor's Degree, 49%
Most common major	Psychology	Psychology
Most common college	California State University - Long Beach	California State University - Long Beach

Therapist vs clinician demographics

Here are the differences between therapists' and clinicians' demographics:

	Therapist	Clinician
Average age	41	45
Gender ratio	Male, 24.4% Female, 75.6%	Male, 24.3% Female, 75.7%
Race ratio	Black or African American, 4.0% Unknown, 3.8% Hispanic or Latino, 7.9% Asian, 11.3% White, 72.6% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.5%	Black or African American, 7.9% Unknown, 6.2% Hispanic or Latino, 7.9% Asian, 3.1% White, 74.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.6%
LGBT Percentage	12%	15%

Differences between therapist and clinician duties and responsibilities

Therapist example responsibilities.

Manage ventilator and BiPAP's and create or update care plans per patient needs.
Demonstrate working knowledge of community mental health services identify in the Medicaid guidelines and attain contractual outcomes within designate time frames.
Provide on-call crisis intervention as well as standard treatment, rehabilitation and support services with some interventions requiring specialize therapy services.
Develop and implement an effective curriculum of DBT inform group and art therapy classes specifically tailor for chemically dependent patients.
Provide trauma-inform individual psychotherapy, TREM group treatment protocol, and EMDR.
Utilize current brain base therapeutic techniques to teach clients adaptive skills to utilize in daily lives.

Clinician example responsibilities.

Perform thorough substance abuse assessments incorporating instruments such as ASAM, SASSI and urine drug screens; provide individual therapy.
Spearhead the development of rehabilitation programs serving adults with chemical dependency and mental health diagnoses with the manager.
Follow all ethical CARF standards when treating the residential client.
Facilitate stabilization, assessment, care and compassion for those in critical need.
Provide CBT and motivational interviewing for individual and group therapy to clients' who are on methadone.
Used motivational interviewing to lead recovery and therapy groups for IOP and PHP programs in the evenings and on weekends.

Therapist vs clinician skills

Common therapist skills

Social Work, 23%
Patients, 12%
Group Therapy Sessions, 8%
Crisis Intervention, 7%
Mental Health, 4%
Patient Care, 3%

Common clinician skills

Social Work, 26%
Patients, 14%
Patient Care, 4%
Individual Therapy, 4%
Mental Health, 4%
Mental Illness, 3%

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Therapist vs Clinician

Updated January 8, 2025

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