Since you’d likely be spending a majority of your time at work, it’s crucial to look for a job and niche that would allow you to refine your skills, connect your passions, and feel rewarded. If your interest leads you to the mental health sector and you want to pursue this path, there are a variety of rewarding careers waiting for you.
Careers In The Mental Health Industry
The mental health sector is a broad landscape with an array of career options and roles. With the importance of mental health finally being recognized, there’s a rise of patients and clients seeking mental health support. In turn, an influx of professionals is needed to meet these demands.
While a career in the mental health industry could be demanding, the role could provide you with opportunities to make a positive impact on someone else’s life. Whether that’d be helping people overcome self-doubts or facilitating group therapy, a career in the mental health field may be worth your while. If you want to delve deeper into this field, below are some career opportunities you may find interesting.
- Clinical Psychologist
A clinical psychologist intervenes, diagnoses, and creates a treatment plan that’s tailored fit to their clients to boost their chances of recovery. They could diagnose and treat people who are suffering from abuse, addiction, childhood trauma, and other similar issues. They also conduct talk therapy with patients to help those who are experiencing a decline in motivation, negative thinking patterns, low mood, and similar cases.
But becoming a therapist is going to take years. Because it’s a vast and concentrated field, aspirants must proceed to graduate school to expand their knowledge, immerse in an array of training, and refine their skills.
After taking your bachelor’s degree, you’d need to earn a Ph.D. or Psy.D. degree in the field. In other countries, you’d be compelled to complete a master’s degree, work in a clinic, and take the psychologist licensure exam. Knowing these ahead would help prepare you for a long and fulfilling career.
All these are done to help clinicians and aspirants understand deeper concepts, determine the difference between overlapping symptoms, provide practical insights to various clients, and take on multiple roles in the field. These roles could include interpreting psychological results, performing counseling and psychotherapy, conducting research, and similar tasks.
- Mental Health Life Coach
Unlike a clinical psychologist, a life coach isn’t required to take on higher education as they don’t specialize in managing mental health illnesses and other complex problems. Instead, they help clients who are experiencing prevalent and mild mental health challenges.
As a mental health coach, you’d most likely be helping clients challenge negative thinking patterns, gain confidence, deal with crises, find work-life balance, improve relationships, achieve life goals, and overcome creativity block—all of which improves mental health. When a client is choosing a life coach, it is important that they find the right fit. They need to be comfortable and no matter what particular situation they need help with, they should feel that they are benefitting from hiring a life coach. You’d also be guiding patients in looking for alternatives, identifying their strengths, and maximizing their resources to improve the quality of their lives.
- Psychiatrist
The main difference between a psychiatrist and a psychologist is that the prior is a medical doctor who may prescribe medicine to their patients. The latter, on the other hand, performs interventions through talk therapy and treatment programs.
Psychiatry appears to be one of the most in-demand areas of medicine. But similar to becoming a physician, you’d need to complete four years of medical school after earning your bachelor’s degree. After finishing these, you’d be required to render hours to become a psychiatric resident.
While it’d take time and a whole lot of money, you could apply for scholarships to help you fund your medical education. You could also enroll in a reputable state university for low tuition without compromising quality education.
To practice psychiatry, you’d need to continue to immerse yourself in various training and certification programs to refresh and solidify your expertise in the field. All these could help you prepare and deal with an array of psychiatric disorders.
- Family Therapist
If you see yourself dealing with social units to help improve their relationships, becoming a family therapist might be right for you. As a professional, you’d be conducting family counseling to iron out marriage conflicts, intervene with poor group dynamics, sort out communication problems, cope with family tragedies, and look into the impact of substance abuse in the family.
You could even work with parents who are having a difficult time understanding their child with a mental disorder or a teenager who’s opening up with their sexual identity. If successful, you could create a healthy and productive home environment for your clients.
The Takeaway
The mental health industry is such a broad area filled with a plethora of meaningful career opportunities for a lot of aspirants. Whether you’re inclined to doing research or helping people overcome their personal struggles, you’d surely be able to find a job that matches your skills and interests.
