Mental health clinicians help clients with emotional problems, addiction, and interpersonal relationships. They interview, observe, and administer tests to determine problems and encourage clients to talk about their feelings. Clinicians maintain confidential records and attend courses to learn new counseling techniques. They use mental health theories to develop treatments and need skills such as caring for others and listening impartially.
A mental health clinician is a type of therapist who works to prevent and treat emotional problems. The clinician’s clients may need help with self-esteem, stress management, addiction, or substance abuse issues. Other areas where a mental health practitioner can help people include interpersonal relationships, such as relationships with a spouse or child. The mental health physician can also assess a person’s risk of attempting suicide and provide appropriate treatment based on the results of the assessment.
The people mental health doctors help are called clients, not patients. Doctors interview and observe the client and can administer simple tests to determine what kind of problems a person has. They then encourage the client to talk about their feelings and what is going on in their lives to help them understand their own actions. Counseling cannot be limited to just one individual. A clinician may also need to speak and work with a client’s family members because their influence can affect the person’s recovery or overall mental health.
In addition to interviews, mental health physicians create and maintain confidential client records and related documents. This can include records that are formulated by the government, diagnostic records, or notes on the client’s progress. Records of the client’s medications and their use or misuse of them may also be required.
Mental health is a science in continuous development, and a mental health clinician may have to attend courses or seminars to learn about new developments in counseling techniques. Another way to learn is to read professional literature or mental health counseling journals. Gathering information about community mental health needs can also be done through communication with other social service workers.
Doctors use mental health theories to develop treatments for individual clients. Mental health doctors may have a mental health counseling degree or a psychology level. The classes required to achieve these degrees teach about how the brain works, developmental psychology, how people learn and what drives their behavior. While attending college, students learn how medications work with a person’s brain to ease the symptoms of mental illnesses and how to test a person for those illnesses.
People who become mental health clinics often enjoy working with and helping people, both individually and in a group therapy setting. Skills that often help being a counselor include the ability to balance caring for others and caring for yourself. Another useful skill is the ability to listen impartially and without judgment.
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