Counseling Degrees - Accredited Psychologists
Counselors are not normal people. They are people with a mission. Counselors are people who make a living by helping other people. In the end, it is not much different from social service except that people come to counselors for help rather than the other way around. Counselors help people cope with day to day problems like marriage problems, family problems, educational problems and social problems. A counselor is required to possess a counseling degree and be well experienced and qualified to handle any type of situation. Counseling degrees can be obtained from many famous colleges across the world. Basically, studying to be a counselor can be very demanding and rigorous. Firstly, a student should sit down and evaluate his strengths and weaknesses and dwelling upon them, one should decide the field of psychology he would want to opt for. Secondly, a student pursuing counseling should have good communication skills and a patient disposition. This enables the counselor to listen and understand the problem of the patient carefully before giving advice. The last and most important quality of a counselor is to b able to perform under tremendous pressure. A counselor never knows what to expect. He could have a murderer, a convict, a rapist or someone with a suicidal tendency as a client. The counselor should always remain calm and composed and maintain a cool and collected appearance on the outside for the clients to feel at ease with him. People expect counselors to be well qualified and equipped with master's degrees in psychology and to be accredited as professionals working in the field of psychology. Many famous universities across the world provide undergraduate and postgraduate courses in psychology and specializations in family counseling, marriage counseling, school counselors and normal psychiatrists and psychoanalysts. One could also opt for courses on the Internet and still obtain the masters degrees. Online masters are provided by Walden University, University of Wisconsin and Capella University. Some of these universities provide masters degrees which have been accredited by the Council of Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) in the US. Graduates from these universities are automatically accredited by the National Board of Certified Counselors to be National Certified Counselors. Others have to get their accreditation the hard way by obtaining a masters degree and then putting in a minimum of 2 years work experience behind them. Other certification schemes are the Certified Mental Health Counselor (CMHC), Certified Clinical Mental Health Counselor (NACCMHC), Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC), and Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC). As mentioned above, one could choose to specialize in Psychology, Mental Health Counseling, Family and Marriage counseling or School counseling. Each of these streams teaches different methods of approaching problems and trying to understand the patient's problems. It also restricts your skill, knowledge and clients to that field as a mental health counselor could hardly take over as a marriage counselor. After the counseling degree has been obtained and the accreditation is over, the counselor can choose to either pursue his career as a freelancer or join a group or organization. Often one may find that Mental Health counselors work for the Police or the judicial system. School Counselors are snapped up by schools, colleges and universities which pay them richly to be a part of their staff. But in the end, a well trained counselor is an asset to have in an organization. As someone rightly said, "The mind is a good master, but it is a better slave". |
