Research a Medication. Support Groups. National Hotlines. Featured Articles. What's New. List Your Practice. List Your Treatment Center. Publish an Article. My Account. Credential Abbreviations. The therapists listed in this directory have a wide range of credentials academic degrees, licenses, certifications, etc.
The list below presents some of the more common credential abbreviations and their meanings. Academic Degrees. Licenses and Certifications.
American Board of Couple and Family Psychology. American Board of Professional Neuropsychology. American Board of Professional Psychology.
Academy of Clinical Social Workers. Advanced Practice Registered Nurse. Registered Art Therapist. Registered Art Therapist - Board Certified.
Certified in Acute Traumatic Stress Management. Certified in Bereavement Trauma. Certified Crisis Chaplain. Certified in Corporate Crisis Response. Certified in Crisis Intervention. Certified in Child Trauma. Social work is about social systems. Both are important in behavior and happiness. Social work is more about systems. Clinical social workers can and do look at mental states and behavioral issues on the individual level, but they tend to base their diagnosis and treatment in broader contexts of social structures and supports.
They aim for holistic solutions that assist both individuals and communities. That broader focus on addressing systemic issues puts LCSWs into contact with more social services systems and more community groups, too. They engage in political lobbying and activism in an effort to change chronic issues that may reach way beyond the individual level. Psychologists also recognize those big systemic problems, but their role is to help each patient figure out their own solution.
The ability of a psychologist to really plumb the depths of the human brain make them a better choice for handling issues that are more rooted in individual mental processes.
Complex mental health problems like schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder are tough to diagnose and fix. The specialized training a psychologist gets makes them the right kind of expert to handle such issues. In instances where the root causes of mental health issues are wrapped up with personal circumstance or bigger social issues, though, an LCSW can offer better solutions.
The best solution for treating depression in a homeless person, for example, might be to find them housing. Dealing with chronic addiction issues might benefit from not just talk therapy but also placement in a methadone treatment program. Clinical social workers have the mindset and the training to offer that kind of broad-spectrum treatment. An LCSW working in juvenile healthcare might get a referral from a doctor who suspects that a student suffering from ulcers is developing the condition in response to problems at home.
They also have the experience and training to spot potential problems within the family like bullying or abuse. Finally, they have a broad set of tools to fall back on to resolve whatever the root issues is—whether it is counseling the student directly, making a placement in an after-school program, or arranging for child welfare supervision from the state. Social workers have a big toolbox for dealing with all kinds of behavioral, psychosocial, and just flat-out random issues that life throws at people.
They are the ideal tool for scoping out and solving practical problems that keep people from having happier, more fulfilling lives. What does LCSW stand for? It stands for Licensed Clinical Social Worker.
Each state sets out licensing requirements for the LCSW, or for an equivalent license. Not every state defines the job exactly the same. You can also find other similar titles like:. Whatever the exact abbreviation that is used to describe their license, clinical social workers are both trained and authorized to offer direct therapy to clients. Those counseling capabilities come on top of the typical social worker skillsets — client advocacy, coordinating care, and organizing services.
Not all of these require an LCSW. Social work is roughly divided into direct, macro, and clinical practice levels. The exact licensure required in each of these kinds of work can vary from state to state, however. But you can find LCSWs involved in any of these types of practice:. If you want to understand the differences between psychologists vs social workers, it helps to understand how each job came to be in the first place.
For social workers, the role grew out of the work of philanthropists and volunteer societies trying to address the mass dislocation and poverty that came out of the Industrial Revolution. By the late s, the slums of modern industrial cities had become horrific scenes of poverty and hunger. Christian societies and organizations like the New York Charity Organization Society put together relief efforts, including paid staff who went to investigate and assist.
Those first social workers were called Friendly Visitors. At the political level, those organizations lobbied for government assistance, which arrived with the wealth of the Roaring Twenties and became more critical through the Great Depression. Those collective responses to major societal shifts are part of what helps define the work of clinical social workers even today. Their perspective and reactions are rooted in the history of the profession to take on big problems and look for practical solutions.
Rough living conditions in turn-of-the-century industrial cities sparked the origins of the social work movement. Any kind of clinical social worker needs to have not only an advanced education, but also plenty of real-world experience and demonstrated knowledge in the field. That four-year degree is both a requirement and just a jumping off point. This is a two-year graduate degree that includes both theoretical and practical approaches to social work. There are different types of concentrations available in different MSW programs.
Each different concentration will include both the core classes for the MSW and unique coursework that prepares you for that specialty. Additionally, you may find that your basic courses emphasize approaches and applications that line up with your specialty.
For example, a concentration in school social work may mean more time spent on juvenile development and problems like bullying instead of Alzheimers or other geriatric concerns. MSW programs also require either a thesis paper or a capstone project. But the practical nature of social work has taken many MSW programs in the direction of a capstone project instead.
These projects are more action-oriented, with less focus on writing and more on practical implementations of your ideas. To earn LPC credentials, you have to:. Meeting these qualifications earns you the legal authority to deliver psychotherapeutic and other counseling services to a wide variety of clients.
Many different types of professional therapists can offer counseling, however. The specific state laws creating the credential define what exactly the capabilities are of the LPC, meaning what range of services can be provided and what the obligations of the LPC are. Those services are:. But what is LMHC, anyway? Although the training and terminology is very similar, the use of the world clinical in those titles is both intentional and important.
That usually signifies specific training in, and lawful abilities to, treat mental illness. In contrast, an LPC may also have that training and those rights, but could also work in more general categories like career counseling or rehabilitation counseling. It always pays to look at the scope of practice and licensing laws specific to the state you are considering earning counseling credentials in. In states with an LMHC, however, some of the job duties that might typically be restricted to LPCs may not require any kind of license at all.
In other words, non-clinical counseling may be performed without a license requirement in some of those states. However, actual clinical training and experience may be a more important part of the licensing requirements for LMHCs. The word clinical does a lot of heavy lifting in this category of license. There are many, many different kinds of social work and many individuals licensed to perform it.
Licensed Clinical Social Workers, however, have not only the training and background to perform general social work tasks, but also the additional psychology and therapy education to offer psychotherapy for mental health and behavioral issues their clients might suffer from.
Depending on the state, you can find a state-equivalent to a counseling social work license going by any one of these names:. For social workers, counseling is only a part of the job. In some social work roles, counseling might not even be a part of the work at all. An LCSW will have the legal authority and the training to engage in clinical counseling, but it may not be the primary focus of their job.
The hard lives of turn-of-the-century immigrants and factory workers gave rise to the modern profession of social work. Their goal is to cure the issue that is facing the client through whatever tools are available. If that can happen through direct counseling, they may take that role themselves.
Or they might resolve the problem without directly involving the client at all, by addressing external factors including:. LPC therapists, on the other hand, revolve around their counseling capabilities. Working with individuals and groups to correct specific issues within their own control is the counseling approach. The LPC is also about problem-solving, but they are the specialists who are expected to use their clinical toolbox to get that job done.
They may also refer clients out, but only when the problem is beyond their level of treatment capability, or if the problem cannot be resolved through therapy. An example would be a client who comes in with severe depression and anxiety issues. Through their evaluation, if the LPC finds that the root of those issues is a more complex mental health issue, like schizophrenia, they will probably refer the patient out to a psychologist with more expertise in that field.
Or if the depression and anxiety is coming from a life situation like homelessness, they might refer the patient to a social worker, who is better equipped to line up housing and basic services. You can also understand some of these differences by looking at the histories of both professions. Trained social workers have existed in the United States since the late s. By , with the Great Depression bearing down, the role had become so widespread that the U.
Census Bureau started tracking it. Counselors, on the other hand, have a lineage that goes back just as far, but have not had a distinct role or license until relatively recently. Mental health counseling came of age with the science of psychology, a profession that became broadly accepted in the mid to late s. At the same time, as the Industrial Revolution was underway, the first counselors were coming into the picture to provide vocational guidance to displaced or injured workers.
The Industrial Revolution created massive displacement in traditional communities that lead to both an expanded interest in social welfare and some of the earliest efforts at individual counseling. Faced with a wave of returning soldiers who both had little or no skills or experience in regular jobs, and who were experiencing the kind of post-war mental issues we would now recognize as PTSD, counseling as we know it today began to shift into gear.
As the country was entering the Cold War with educational and industrial demands at the highest levels ever and a large population of veterans without the training necessary to fill those roles, the federal government decided to do something about both problems. So in , the National Defense Education Act was born. Through Title V of the act, that included provisions for the training of counselors. Although guidance counselors for secondary schools were the intended recipients, the practical effect of the program was to offer a tremendous boost to counseling programs in general at universities nationwide.
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