There are excellent clinicians in all mental health disciplines. However, for counseling and psychotherapy the most highly trained mental health professional is a Clinical Psychologist. Psychoactive medication treatment should never be done without psychotherapy. In itself, it can never resolve the core reason why a person is depressed or anxious. When prescribed without counseling it is similar to giving a person with a broken arm only pain-reducing medication. It is estimated today that greater than 80% of psychoactive medications are prescribed by non-psychiatric physicians. Unfortunately the majority of these patients never receive the benefit of counseling where someone helps them to discover and understand why they are depressed or anxious, struggling in their marriage or parental role or attempting to bring out the best in the employees they manage.

Clinical Psychologists are the best trained psychotherapist among mental health professionals. Why? Training and an emphasis upon understanding why the person struggles rather than medicating symptoms. First on depth of training.

The typical Clinical Psychologist spends 11 years studying human behavior. This consists of 4 years for a Baccalaureate degree. An additional 2 years to achieve a Master’s degree. And 3-4 additional years to earn a Ph.D. After earning the doctoral degree an additional year in a post-doctoral internship must be completed before licensing. Training in human behavior includes all of the major theoretical disciplines covering early child development, marriage, family, group and organizational behavior. A Clinical Psychologist’s ability in psychological testing is unsurpassed. Training is beginning to include medication treatment, which until recently was most widely done by general physicians and psychiatrists.

Psychiatrist

A psychiatrist is a medical doctor who completes a 2 to 3 year residency in psychiatry after medical school. The majority of their education has little to do with human behavior. This residency is typically completed in an inpatient mental health unit affiliated with a medical school or at a V.A. hospital. Actual classroom work during this residency is less than the time spent managing cases under the auspices of a board-certified instructor. The strength of this training lies within the experience they gain with severe pathologies like Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorders. The weakness in their training is evident in how little course work they receive. The result is very little knowledge of the theoretical schools, psychological testing or experimental research and design. In the early 1980's psychiatric residency training shifted away from psychotherapy to a physiological emphasis. It has resulted in practice patterns that rely upon medication to a much greater degree than any other mental health provider.

LCSW’s ,MFCC’s, MFT’s

The actual course work in human behavior that both of these disciplines are required to complete is greater than that finished by psychiatry. However, the actual post-graduate training in human behavior is three years versus the six years for a Clinical Psychologist. The strength in an LCSW’s training involves their skill in finding programs necessary for example for the Alzheimer or handicap able patient. Similar to a psychiatrist, training in psychological testing is limited. Also, mastery of the extensive literature on the psychology of human behavior is curtailed. An MFCC is a master level counselor with the least training of all mental health practitioners. Their strength can lie within family and child counseling skills due to their training in family systems theory.