Mrs. Cad want to do her Master’s in psychology. She did not take psych as a BA so she’s not prepared for a PsyD degree. She wants to do grief counseling, not only clinical but also on the ground like “I’m real sorry the tornado just killed your whole family. Have a blanket and some coffee.” counseling.
Her work will pay for it IF it is work related or at least she can justify it as work-related. She does a lot of on-the-job counseling to help her minions ummm… direct reports improve their job performance whereas a lot of managers in her profession view “counseling” as “I’m writing you up to go through the stages of firing your ass.”
So what counseling domain should she be looking at?
In my state they offer something called a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW). It’s like a masters with a big practical component involving clinical hours and fieldwork, plus a state-mandated licensing exam. LCSWs may diagnose mental and emotional disorders but cannot prescribe any medication. They can work as therapists seeing private clients, unlike regular-flavor social workers.
There is a degree/license in Mental Health Counseling in some states. As far as I can tell , the mental health counseling degree is more clinically oriented that a social work degree - social work training and practice seems to include more case management ( referrals to other entities for other needs like housing etc ) than mental health counseling and social work as a field has a “social justice” component that is missing in mental health counseling. Oh and they can work in private practice.
Well she wants to be a mental health counselor. Either she figures out how it applies to her job, or her job doesn’t pay.
To my knowledge there is no kind of degree where you can evaluate and treat mental health that you can just pass off as business psychology for MBAs… If that’s what you are asking.
Well, of course I don’t know her job, but a degree in mental health counseling would be related in the same way a degree in social work or a Psy D in Clinical Psychology would be related. I suppose the name may have given the impression that they deal with seriously mental ill people, but generallly speaking, a person in need of counseling/therapy can obtain it from a variety of practitioners- LMHCs, LCSWs, clinical psychologists, marriage and family therapists and psychiatic nurses can all provide therapy in my state. Clinical counseling /therapy is either job related or not. If an Psy D in Clinical Psych is job related then an LHMC will also be job related unless the Psy D is related for a non-counseling/therapy reason such as administering and intepreting tests.
ETA And it is possible to get an MBA in Industrial/Organizational psychology, but it has nothing to do with counseling.
Clinical social work training is almost all, well, clinical. At least in my state, it involves first earning a Master’s of Social Work, then taking a licensure exam, then a certain number of hours of supervision (and simple time), then another, much tougher licensure exam. It doesn’t require quite as much schooling as a PsyD or a PhD, but it takes more than an Licensed Personal Counselor or a Licensed Marriage and Family Counselor. Don’t know if this is still true, but a few years ago, psychologists, psychiatrists, and LCSWs were the only mental health professionals most insurance plans would cover.
It sounds as though your wife might be more interested in case management social work - that’s the “on the ground” stuff, like working with disaster victims, or in an ER.
Well, if she’s in HR, there’s a link. That’s how my mother got into social work. (I am the son, husband, brother and best friend of LCSWs; I could almost take the licensure exam just from the things I’ve picked up from them…)