Therapist vs mental health nurse

The differences between therapists and mental health nurses can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. Additionally, a mental health nurse has an average salary of $106,812, 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 mental health nurse are patients, psychiatric mental, and PMHNP.

Therapist vs mental health nurse overview

	Therapist	Mental Health Nurse
Yearly salary	$55,943	$106,812
Hourly rate	$26.90	$51.35
Growth rate	17%	6%
Number of jobs	159,770	86,884
Job satisfaction	5	-
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 47%	Bachelor's Degree, 43%
Average age	41	44
Years of experience	-	2

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 mental health nurse do?

A mental health nurse is responsible for assisting with the diagnosis and treatment plans of patients with mental health complications. Mental health nurses handle high-quality nursing care under mental health professionals' supervision within a hospital or mental health institution. They support in performing therapeutic activities, administering medical examinations, and counseling patients to know more about their conditions. A mental health nurse also does administrative tasks as needed, such as organizing and updating patients' information on the database, processing treatment payments, and responding to the family's inquiries and concerns.

Therapist vs mental health nurse salary

Therapists and mental health nurses have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Therapist	Mental Health Nurse
Average salary	$55,943	$106,812
Salary range	Between $39,000 And $80,000	Between $62,000 And $182,000
Highest paying City	San Francisco, CA	San Francisco, CA
Highest paying state	California	California
Best paying company	Childhelp	Community Health Systems
Best paying industry	Government	Government

Differences between therapist and mental health nurse education

There are a few differences between a therapist and a mental health nurse in terms of educational background:

	Therapist	Mental Health Nurse
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 47%	Bachelor's Degree, 43%
Most common major	Psychology	Nursing
Most common college	California State University - Long Beach	Duke University

Therapist vs mental health nurse demographics

Here are the differences between therapists' and mental health nurses' demographics:

	Therapist	Mental Health Nurse
Average age	41	44
Gender ratio	Male, 24.4% Female, 75.6%	Male, 16.9% Female, 83.1%
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, 12.2% Unknown, 4.2% Hispanic or Latino, 8.8% Asian, 9.1% White, 65.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.4%
LGBT Percentage	12%	9%

Differences between therapist and mental health nurse 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.

Mental health nurse example responsibilities.

Interact with patients, coordinate and successfully manage therapeutic group activities with unit staffs under supervision of clinical instructor.
Provide psychiatric evaluation, medication management and education for patients with serious and persistent mental illness and debilitating personality disorders.
Provide transportation, medication management, daily ADL's, housekeeping, and feeding.
Provide hourly room checks and ADL's according to care plan implement by the attending physician.
Initiate emergency resuscitative measures according to adult resuscitation protocols.
Perform case management for outpatient veterans that include psychiatric treatment.

Therapist vs mental health nurse skills

Common therapist skills

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

Common mental health nurse skills

Patients, 22%
Psychiatric Mental, 10%
PMHNP, 6%
Medication Management, 6%
CPR, 5%
Crisis Intervention, 4%

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Therapist vs Mental Health Nurse

Updated January 8, 2025

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