TRICARE Certified Mental Health Counselor

Oregon state laws are similar to Texas laws. As in Texas, Oregon requires a graduate level degree, supervised clinical experience, passing a national competency exam and an internship. Oregon also has two levels of credentialing which are a Registered Intern and a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) (Board of licensed professional counselors, n.d.).

A mental health counselor is a counseling professional, whose duties involves helping individuals cope with difficult life events, managing mental illnesses, and referring patients to additional resources that can help them. Before they can start counseling, they need to follow their states specific requires. For instance, in Louisiana, one has to obtain a master’s degree from an accredited program, have the required hours of supervised practice and coursework, and pass the National Counselor Examination to be licensed and certified. In addition to receiving a license in this field, an individual has to complete an addition 40 hours of continuing education every year to renew their license. The Mental Health Counseling program, offered at Capella, would satisfy most, if not all, of the licensure requirements in Louisiana.

Often times choosing a career path that is compatible with a persons personality may not be as easy as one might believe it to be. On the other hand, once a person is fortunate to figuer out excaly what career path fit’s their personality, finding the job that best suits there finacial expectations usually becomes less of an mental strain. There are countless careers for all of us to choose from and if you enjoy’s helping those in need you may want to look into becoming a mental health counselor or a clinical social worker. However if you aren’t inerested in being too hands on with individuals in need there are two other careers that one may be interested in, which is Clinical management or Medical and Health management. These four professions are similar but different.

Mental Health Counselors are some of highest interacting people in the career industry. Having the highest ability to communicate with peers, you are faced with new challenges every single day. Many different types of people bring many different problems to the table. They are not expected to close the door due to the fact of not knowing how to help one. You will need a very high comprehension of the world around you, to be able to achieve high success rates in this career.

First, the identification of a licensed chemical dependency counselor would suffice at the moment. A licensed chemical dependency counselor are counselors that specialize in identifying and treating addictive behaviors that are maladaptive, altered from cognitive imbalance, and from physiological discrepancies, or frequent intoxication to achieve homeostasis or functionality to some extent. In other words, licensed chemical dependency counselors establish and implement treatments to help people cure their addictions from substances which they are chemically dependent on. Second, the nature of chemical dependency is to be acknowledged. The nature of chemical dependency is not very well understood by human population. Many people see addictions as diseases, immoral behaviors or sins, as maladaptive behaviors, and some may view such substance dependence as out of control behaviors as well. However, chemical or substance dependency is a mental issue. The mind tells the body that it needs a certain substance to function, it is a craving that is difficult for the body to ignore, and the body cannot function until such a need is met. The change in behaviors, mood and conscious motivates the mind further to continue finding ways to meet this need. Therefore, there is not only an addiction, but a chemical dependency issue as well. It is strong and difficult to defeat. It is strong enough that it may cause some people to conduct criminal activities or infringe upon the rights and

As a Deck Captain in Colley House, it is my responsibility to help keep all of my

Becoming a mental health counselor wasn't an easy decision to come about. Hard to become prior to choosing to be a mental health counselor I have a desire to be a special-education teacher, specialize in working with children on the asperger's spectrum of autism. The reason I decided to choose to change my professional goals was because I thought as a counselor I will be able to work with children on different disabilities and adults on a one-to-one basis. Dream experience as a preschool teacher, many colleges have said that I have a sense of counseling and understanding when dealing with children and people. My previous class prior to this class give me a better understanding of what my goals are and how to reach them. So I truly believe

The purpose of this paper is for me to present a summary of a personal interview had with Heather Smith, a clinical mental health counselor. It will further explore a day to day basis on how working as a clinical mental health counselor, may be. Lastly, it will also reflect my personal reflections about my future as a counselor based on information learned in this course.

The mental health professional I interviewed was Carol McClelland of Freedom House Recovery Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Carol has worked with Freedom House for a year as the directory of outpatient services and is licensed as a LPC, LPCS, LCAS, CCS, and MA. Carol’s job requires her to be responsible for the direct oversight of all clinical operations and clinical integrity for outpatient services at Freedom House. The hours of operation are Monday through Friday from 8am to 5pm, along with a crisis and detox center that is available for contact 24/7. Carol has plenty of experience in the mental health field, such as working as a dual diagnosis/substance abuse outpatient therapist, working with the severely mentally ill, working as a criminal justice outpatient therapist, and also working in a methadone clinic. She chose this career after her experiences in working with mental health, and her extensive education in psychology and counseling. Carol stated that outpatient services was the most interesting out of her job experiences, so when she was offered the job at Freedom House, she accepted.

As a mental health counselor in training, I look forward to continuing the process of being aware of my own beliefs and biases. I also recognize that I am human and anticipate some life issues presented by clients will present challenges that I encounter.

I could not find any organizations on the internet; however the ACA and the branches of ACA is advocating for mental health counselors as equals to other counseling professions. I mentioned earlier that the congressman that is advocating for veterans to receive treatment by mental health professionals under the TRICARE program.

In working as a vocational rehabilitation counselor, I am learning the importance of quality individualizes services and how they can support people with disabilities to prepare for obtaining employment. I have been have been participating closely with individuals that have a disability to help them achieve greater levels of independence by assisting them to develop goals and look for opportunities for employment. I am finding out that you have to really put a lot of effort as a vocational counselor in gathering medical, educational and different evaluations to determine eligibility and to help with the planning process of assisting the individual to choose the right occupation for themselves. In planning for a consumer to reach their

A counselling relationship is likened to being on a journey - a beginning, middle and end (Smallwood, 2013). During the beginning phase the client develops sufficient trust in the counsellor and the relationship ‘to explore the previously feared edges of his awareness’ (Mearns and Thorne, 1988, p.126).

People with mental health problems are a growing issue and must be addressed accordingly. When police officers are responding to a 911 call that involves a mentally ill person, the police officers that are responding must be trained on how to de-escalate the situation to protect everyone’s safety. The American Psychological Association (APA) suggests that police departments expand the number of officers with specialty mental health training in their department. (American Psychological Association, 2015). This is where the need for a mental health task force is shown.

I moved to Florida and working for a pilot program called Family and School Support Team South County I got the opportunity to help families with transitioning issues from their culture to this new multicultural country. Helping those families open my eyes and I wanted to do more for the Hispanic community.