What Is a Mental Health Therapist?

Ask any two mental health therapists to define their profession, and different answers might emerge. Also sometimes called a mental health counselor, therapist or psychotherapist, the definition of what these professionals can be varied and based on many different types of factors. In broad terms the mental health therapist is a trained professional who could offer a wide range of therapeutic support to individuals or groups and to couples or families. Focus is typically on the person’s or group’s identified problems, and ways in which discussion or thinking about these problems could promote change.

Virtually anyone called a mental health therapist has at least a master’s degree and associated licenses. People can become a marriage family therapist (MFT), a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW), or a licensed professional counselor (LPC). Some psychologists also specialize in therapy, though their degree may not designate this. Yet a psychologist with a Psy.D degree may have more specifically focused on mental health issues and counseling while in school.

There are several things that a mental health therapist may do. They tend to listen and talk to people who are having a variety of problems. These problems could be mental illnesses, in which case the therapist might also work with a psychiatrist who prescribes medication for a patient. A lot of other basic problems might be the focus of therapy, including dealing with trauma, having a hard time controlling emotions, trying to make important decisions, feeling sad or angry all of the time, and many others. There are also more uncommon reasons to visit a therapist, such as acquiring an ESA letter for an emotional support animal.

As mentioned, mental health therapy isn’t necessarily individual therapy. Therapists might run groups that are specific to certain issues, inviting clients or others to join. Couples or family therapy can be mental health therapy too. All these types are directed toward helping to resolve mental problems.

While this description sounds simplistic, it isn’t meant to be. Solving problems can be difficult work, and as a client talks, the mental health therapist is engaged in active listening. He or she might spot recurrent issues prior to the client. Depending on what kind of therapy is being practiced, the therapist might then bring these issues to the client’s attention.

This is the part where things get exceptionally complicated. There are many different schools of thought that can underlie how a mental health therapist performs his job. Some of these, like psychoanalysis, suggests the therapist say very little, and allow the issues and problems to always come from the client. Other forms of therapy, like cognitive behavioral therapy, are more teaching directed, and a client may even take home homework each week. What can be vast differences in approach may very much underscore the difficulty in defining what a mental health therapist does. To confuse matters, many therapists endorse an eclectic approach, which may draw on lots of different schools of thought as appears appropriate to each individual client.

In the end, it can be said that the mental health therapist works with clients in a variety of configurations to work on problems of anything from a puzzling to deeply serious nature. The way this work unfolds depends on the training and preferences of the therapist. Similarly, some therapists choose to work with specific groups, and might not work with children, couples, or might avoid working with adults. This work often takes place in an office environment, but things like group work might occur in conference rooms, and occasionally therapists travel to their client’s locations, instead of having patients meet with them.