Master Degree In Counseling
Q: I'm curious as to how many people reading this group are mental
health professionals, and if so, of what discipline? There
seems to a movement towards licensing counselors. Several states
have them as licensed counselors, and at last count -so I'm told-
10 states call them professional counselors or licensed
professional counselors, and they seem to be two classes,
depending on training. One has a clinical endorsement so they
can independently diagnose and treat. They can also do psychological
evaluations and perform psychotherapy. My question is, what are
they, and more importantly, why are they? The educational
requirement is as stringent as it is for psychology (i.e. Ohio
requires the Ph.D. and two years of supervision for the clinical
endorsement.) It makes no sense to me, and after talking to two
of them at a conference, Im cetin they are as much at a loss to
explain this as I am. The _only_ thing that clicked with me was
that almost everyone and anyone is accepted into the counseling
track in colleges, and it's more difficult to get into a psych
program. Also I'm confused as to why a license is needed to call
yourself a psychologist. When you think about it, anyone who
studies psychology is by definition a psychologist. The
psychology text books are used by most mental health types
(Social Worker here) and is seems all of us are doing
"pscyhological" procedures. The psych books are full of
"psychologists" who in fact are psychiatrists adopted by the
psychologists. If I sound confused, it's because I am!
A:A couple of things stand out in your post. The reason so many variations
of licensing occurs depends upon a couple of factors. For example,
Minnesota use to license Master's level psychologists. However, they
were supervised by Ph.D.s The primary reason the MA level existed is
that historically, the MA degree was an advanced degree many years ago.
The Ph.D. was not very common. As time passed, more individuals have
entered the field. In an effort to continue to push the quality standards
in training more advance degrees have been granted greater protection
under the law, however, the standards of behaviour have also become more
stringent.
The second factor feeding into this topic is that of "third party
payments." Essentially, insurance companies. Because insurance
companies don't want to pay for ineffective therapy they have chosen the
more advance degreed professionals as the primary providers of services
with the assumption that they are better trained and ultimately