To know whether you should pursue a career in therapy, you first need to know what a therapist does. A therapist is an individual with professional training that enables them to help their clients develop better emotional and cognitive skills, deal with mental illness, as well as handle life challenges properly to improve their lives.
As a therapist, you aren’t a medical doctor as you can’t prescribe medicine. Your expertise lies in understanding peoples’ feelings and thoughts and showing them how to improve their lives with essential life skills.
Types Of Therapists
Choosing to become a certain kind of therapist depends on your passion and the kind of people you would like to help. There are several types of therapists, which include:
1. Addiction Therapist: This is a trained counselor or therapist who helps their clients become liberated from substance abuse.
2. Divorce Therapist: They help couples who are undergoing marital struggles and are on the verge of divorce.
3. Child Therapist: They specialize in issues affecting children below the age of 17, particularly dealing with behavioral, emotional, and mental disorders. They are often employed in schools or medical centers.
4. Eating Disorder Therapist: They help patients who are experiencing eating disorders. The kind of therapy to give depends on the kind of eating disorder and symptoms a patient has. You need to also have training in psychotherapy, nutrition education, or medication.
5. Hypnotherapist: A hypnotherapist is a professional who can induce a trance-like state and help you use your subconscious mind so that you can change your behavioral patterns or the way of your thinking.
6. Trauma Therapist: They help patients overcome the pain of traumatic events.
7. Exercise Therapist: They specialize in helping clients who experience injury or are recuperating from disease or illness to normal body functioning.
Signs That You Can Become a Therapist
If you’re interested in pursuing a career in therapy, watch out for the following signs to know whether you’re cut for the profession:
You Love Keeping Secrets
Everyone at some point desires to confide in someone something that is personal and be guaranteed total secrecy. Social work, psychiatry, psychology, and other therapy-related fields demand that whatever your patients share with you should not be known by a third person except when the law demands.
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It requires discipline and mental strength to keep information in your mind without telling others. This is especially so when the information is negative and when given out can destroy how others view your client. However, secrecy must not be exercised in situations where your patient endangers themselves or others.
You’re Good at Listening
Therapists ought to learn to listen attentively to the information that their clients give. By listening, you can understand how the mind of your client works so that you can offer your clients the right guidance. It enables the patient to open up more and gains a sense of trust towards you. The healing of therapy patients begins from the place of openness to listen.
If you’ve found yourself being preferred by your classmates or colleagues when they have challenges and confine to you, then a career in therapy might suit you.
You’re Emphatic
To be emphatic means that you’re able to identify and understand what other people are experiencing even when the description of what they’re saying isn’t as vivid as it should. To be a great therapist, you need to understand how to empathize with different kinds of people, their feelings, and choices even when you don’t agree with them.
You need to be attuned to the needs of your patients and be able to help them articulate their feelings. If your client is suffering from anger feelings, this might be coming from a struggle of feelings of lack. Thus, you need to be able to help them identify it.
You Know How Set Boundaries
To have professional traits in your career as a therapist, you have to establish and keep healthy boundaries with your clients. By all means, avoid having relationships with the people you’re counseling, especially people of the opposite sex. If you’re a divorce therapist, your ability to give a listening ear to your client may trigger a feeling of attraction from your client and desire to have a sexual or romantic relationship now that their marriage is on the rocks.
Moreover, you can let your client be aware of the boundaries that your job must adhere to. You can communicate this at the onset of the therapy session during the consultation or when they are filling in the disclosure form.
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You’re A Critical Thinker
You need to have critical thinking skills to be able to diagnose and develop an effective therapy treatment plan for your client. In some instances, the first recommendation plan may not work, which may necessitate you to offer another alternative.
Some kinds of therapy, such as nutrition therapy, require that you combine your critical thinking with your scientific mind. You need to stay updated with current research so that you can be able to give the right prescriptions.
You may also be required to recommend other types of treatments, such as herbal therapies, exercise, or nutritional changes. If you can help your clients try several options, you have a high chance of success in your career.
Critical thinking may require you to be able to detect underlying issues and be able to question so that you don’t miss important behavioral explanations. For instance, if your client is having problems with an abusive partner, they might be the result of the abuse because of verbal abuse. Critical questions will help you bring everything to the surface so that you can offer the correct recommendations.
You’re Good in Business Skills
If you’re not planning to work for an organization but venture into private practice, you need to have good business management skills. This should include aspects such as knowing how to manage and track your finances, submitting your taxes, keeping good client records, and managing your time well so that you can make good money.
Moreover, you should have ideas on how you can advertise your work in your social media accounts, in the print media, on your blog, among others. However, even though business skills are good, they shouldn’t be a priority in pursuing a career in therapy as you can hire someone with the skills. Though having them will be a plus as you’ll be able to save on expenditure.
Final Thoughts
A career in therapy can be a fulfilling one, especially if you’re people-oriented. You can research more tips online to supplement the ones given in this article. The indicators given in this article are among the top signs. Thus, if you do possess them, a career in therapy might be a good option for you. You can now take the bold step and enroll in school for a therapy career of your choice.
