Mental Health Therapist

Millions of Americans are victims to mental health issues which is an abundance of problems that people have to deal with. Fortunately, there appears to be therapist that help people deal with their problems and teach them how to control their emotions while facing the issue. Mental health therapist assist people in solving their problems, controlling their emotions, and guiding them in the right path. I personally want to become a mental health therapist because I have friends who have issues and I see the struggle they go through which makes feel like I should be helping people like them if I can when I grow up. To become a therapist I will have to prepare for the job through schooling and learn the working conditions and the specific details of the job.

To start off, although helping patients is the main part of the job, there seems to be other conditions that must be noticed. A therapist should focus on the patient and block what’s bothering them to do his/her job, mainly to as it says in go.galegroup.com, ‘’Mental health counselors and marriage and family therapists help people manage or overcome mental and emotional disorders and problems with their family and relationships’’. In other words they solve patients everyday problems to try and release them from some stress. But there are unexpected problems like having to cope with giving a patient the wrong idea accidently or having to deal with knowing you could have saved someone if you would’ve said something different. So therapist should be caring and thoughtful for them to have a fine chance of not facing these issues. A therapist is expected daily to shut off their emotions and their problems and put them on hold to do their job sufficiently. Like every other job, the full description isn’t always put out there and the conditions of the job are not always pain free.

To continue, there are still details that don’t involve the role of a therapist but more the hours, pay wage, and the future of the job. A mental health therapist makes a decent amount of money in my point of view as it says in www.ziprecruiter.com, ” As of Jan 27, 2019, the average annual pay for a Mental Health Therapist in the United States is $63,057 a year”. Although, it might not seem like a lot to some but sixty-three thousand dollars is a lot to get under a year of work. A great part of the job is a therapist can work as many hours as he/she likes due to the fact that they set up their own appointments which is a pro for the job. Another pro of the job is there will be many openings when I get older because yearly more and more people get depressed which is horrible but they go to therapist to fix their problems. Reading and writing is used in this profession because they raise peoples creativity and can help therapist think out of the box to come up with a solution. Those are a couple of minor or maybe even major details for others, to know about the job.

To finish off, before a person becomes a mental health therapist they first have to prepare for the job through college and programs. To actually practice on the field therapist need to earn it through working in college, which it says in study.com that, “Therapist have to earn a graduate degree to start working in the field’’. The only way a person earns a graduate degree is through working hard in college and if they work to their best potential, they can earn a masters and a doctoral degree. Even in high school there’s a way to prepare for the job and the best option for me to follow the career path is to take “AP Psychology” in eleventh grade. But after high school I would have to choose the best college to get to my career which is Boston College with the programs they offer. Then after college I can get down to business and open my own workplace. That’s my plan on how to become a mental health therapist and how I will prepare myself for the job.

All in all, before I start preparing myself to become a therapist and planning my future out, I need to remember the specific details and the description and working conditions of the job. Although I know that therapist live a stressful life, I still feel like it’s the best career path for me. But who knows, maybe I’ll find a new interest in another job but at the moment my main goal is to become a mental health therapist.