Career As A Mental Health Counselor

Mental Health Counselor

Mental Health Counselors are very important in today’s society. Our busy, stressful, hectic, everyday lives can be a little overwhelming at times. Mental Health Counselors are here for people who sometimes can’t handle everyday activities and tasks. The definition given to a Mental Health Counselor is “A mental health counselor helps individuals and families deal with difficult emotions, mental health disorders and trauma. A person with this title provides therapy and coaching to help his patients manage their stress, redirect disturbing emotions and set goals for themselves.” (The Role of Mental Health Counselors: Jordan Meyers). Mental health illnesses could be birth given but some are developed later
Mental Health Counselors can work individually, with families, hospitals, and inpatient and outpatient health facilities. Being this type of counselor can be very difficult to get into, maintain and sometimes it can be draining, there are many hours and patients that needs to be dedicated to make sure you do the best that you can do.

There are many characteristics and responsibilities that are needed or are good to have to be a good Mental Health Counselor. Many include being good at math, organization, patients, compassion, optimism, positivity, and listening skills. Mental Health Counselors will often work with Clinical Counselors so Mental Health counselors must know how to provide research and data for clinical counseling. Mental Health Counselors will have to listen to many problems from many
Counselors need to know that they are trying to get help and they need to take their emotions and thoughts into account. Many people going into mental health counseling will not want to be there; they could have been forced by a friend or family member, so counselors need to make sure they aren’t being too pushy. Making them feel comfortable and safe is one of the first and most important step in counseling. Mental health counselors get to meet many different people, that can be very exciting; depending on the type of person though. It may take time for the client to fully trust you and cooperate with you. It’s your job to listen to everything that they need to say before you speak, don’t interrupt when a client is talking. Mental illnesses can affect how a person sees the world, themselves or other people, it can mess with their happiness and other emotions. Many illnesses make a person very unhappy and uncomfortable such as depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, self-harm or alcohol/substance abuse. It’s a good idea to try to make the conversations more positive, rather than focusing on the negatives and what’s going badly try to ask about something exciting that happened, what they are looking forward to or something that made them smile that day/week. Counselors are there to listen and talk to clients but they are also there to get the help that the patient