Mental Health Counseling: Features, Aspects, and Skills

This article discusses the features, aspects, and skills required for mental health counseling. It covers the daily work of mental health counselors, their license requirements, and the different types of mental health issues they treat. The article also highlights the importance of empathy, listening, social skills, and communication skills in this profession. Additionally, it sheds light on the need for continuous professional development and staying up-to-date with new advancements in the field.

Running head: MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELING
MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELING
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

1
MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELING
Mental health counselors can be described as the licensed professionals who mainly help
in managing and thereby overcoming the different mental and emotional disorders and problems
with family and other relationships (Gladding & Newsome, 2017). They are seen to
communicate with the clients so that they can develop an understanding of the problems of the
clients, thus develop initiatives and strategies for improving their mental health condition, and
hence ensure better quality lives (Kohrt et al., 2015). This assignment would mainly contain a
summary of the different features of the profession of a mental health counselor working in New
Jersey as well as explanation of the different aspects of the profession in details.
In order to practice the profession of the mental health counselor, it is extremely
important for the professionals to earn a mental health counselor license (Stebleton, Soria &
Huesman, 2014). However, the daily work of the professionals may not always involve
counseling. Many of the studies have shown that such professionals may become administrators,
educators as well as consultants before or after their clinical work (Clement et al, 2015). A
similar case scenario was observed when I took the interview of the mental health counselor
working in New Jersey. The professional who has been interviewed was seen to mainly conduct
home therapies for families with 2.5 hours in each of the sessions. In addition to the home visits,
the professionals are seen to conduct consultancy sessions on bio-psycho-social health of the
young people in the youth homes and thereby suggest whether they would need any home
therapy or not.
In order to achieve a proper license, mental health counselors are seen to have earned
master’s degree I the relevant psychological field and should have completed a specific number
of hours of clinical training under specific and licensed supervisors (Hall, 2016). Many of the
professional organizations also want doctorate degree for their professionals although such

2
MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELING
demand is not much common in the state. The person whom I interviewed had a different
procedure, as he was not a member of this state initially. He had received a license as a
psychologist in Puerto Rico and for that he had to go through long procedures of documentation
to ultimately gain a license in the State of New Jersey. He had to go through a large number of
steps like finding and filling up of large number of documents, making huge number of phone
calls, translate a large number of documents as most of them were in Spanish and many others.
However, one interesting thing he told was that he goy immense help from the board as the board
members was the one who continually encouraged him to finish the procedures so that he can get
his license. Therefore, it can be seen that getting the license is extremely important so that the
individual can start practicing as the professional.
The main profession of the mental health counselor is to treat people with different types
of mental health issues. They treat patients dealing with depression, eating disorders, anxiety as
well as anger management difficulties. They also deal with patients suffering from post-
traumatic stress issues, grief as well as troubled relationships (Capuzzi & Stauffer, 2016). Such
professionals also are seen to treat patients who suffer from different sorts of addiction. Such
clients may struggle with alcoholism, drugs, illegal substances and many others. There are also
two arenas where the professionals are seen to care. They also help in crisis treatment where they
help individuals who need treatment because of traumatic events (Vanlith et al., 2016). The
professionals help individuals in the distress that occur following accidents or natural disasters or
any form of traumatic events. He also provides help in cases when their clients become suicidal,
refuses medication or threatens for self-harm. The professional who was interviewed mainly was
seen to provide care for children and the families and accordingly provided therapies to them. I
also noted that he also practiced in the domains of vocational areas where he helped people in

3
MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELING
figuring out what they want to do for the rest of their lives. Therefore, the professionals are seen
to cover a large number of different roles.
After taking interview of the professional from New Jersey, I noticed that the skills he
described were exactly similar to my knowledge about the traits required to be in the profession.
I have come to develop knowledge during my theoretical classes that empathy is one of the most
important skills that is required by them to understand the thoughts and feelings of the clients
from their point of views. The interviewee also stressed upon this skills beside another skill that
was the listening skill. As a professional, I believe it is extremely important to actively listen to
the patients, reflect their thought back to them and accordingly remember important events and
feelings that are conveyed to them. However, in addition to this, I also believe presence of well
developed social skills and communication skills are extremely important for this profession.
Such skills are very important for making the clients feel comfortable and help in development
of therapeutic relationship with the patients. These are based on development of mutual trust and
respect for each other (Werth, 2016).
After closely analyzing the interview, it was seen that the professional had focused on the
introduction of more therapies and services for the children and the women who are facing
violence. Previously, I used to believe that substance abuse issues are most common in the states
but the interview enlightened me where I came to know that we cannot hear of the domestic
violence cases more because, most of them gets unreported or the clients request the
professionals not to reveal information. Therefore, as I proceed with my education and practical
assignments, I believe that I have to be more knowledgeable and efficient about handling such
sensitive cases and traumatic events. Moreover, I also believed that once I complete my
education I could practice the profession lifelong with it. From the interview, I learnt that I have

4
MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELING
to engage myself in continuous professional development and have to be up to date with every
new advancements in the fields. For this, I need to go through evidence-based interventions,
attend seminars, discuss cases with other professionals and others so that I can attain knowledge
and skills effectively.

5
MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELING
References:
Capuzzi, D., & Stauffer, M. D. (2016). Counseling and psychotherapy: Theories and
interventions. John Wiley & Sons.
Clement, S., Schauman, O., Graham, T., Maggioni, F., Evans-Lacko, S., Bezborodovs, N., ...
& Thornicroft, G. (2015). What is the impact of mental health-related stigma on help-
seeking? A systematic review of quantitative and qualitative studies. Psychological
medicine, 45(1), 11-27.
Gladding, S. T., & Newsome, D. W. (2017). Clinical mental health counseling in community
and agency settings. Pearson.
Hall, L. K. (2016). Counseling military families: What mental health professionals need to
know. Routledge.
Kohrt, B. A., Jordans, M. J., Rai, S., Shrestha, P., Luitel, N. P., Ramaiya, M. K., ... & Patel,
V. (2015). Therapist competence in global mental health: development of the
ENhancing Assessment of Common Therapeutic factors (ENACT) rating
scale. Behaviour research and therapy, 69, 11-21.
Stebleton, M. J., Soria, K. M., & Huesman Jr, R. L. (2014). First‐generation students' sense
of belonging, mental health, and use of counseling services at public research
universities. Journal of College Counseling, 17(1), 6-20.
Van Lith, T. (2016). Art therapy in mental health: A systematic review of approaches and
practices. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 47, 9-22.

6
MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELING
Werth Jr, J. L. (2016). Rational suicide?: Implications for mental health professionals.
Taylor & Francis.