Answers to Consumer Questions
Question 7:
"Where I can find information on schools with degree programs for
people who wish to become counselors? I'm not sure where else to look.
What are the requirements in Washington State for being a counselor?
Do you think it matters whether one pursues an AA degree or an AS
before they start on the road toward becoming a counselor? Thank you
for any knowledge you can provide! Sincerely, LB"
Dear LB:
With regard to training to be a counselor. My personal opinion is that
the best counselors have held other jobs and worked in other fields
before becoming counselors. It is simply because real life experience
is extremely valuable in counseling others.
I was 43 when I returned to college to obtain my masters degree in
counseling. (I don't recommend that all potential counselors wait that
long, only that you don't need to rush your counselor training.)
Working full-time nights and going to school days, it took me four
years going year around to obtain what would normally be a two year
Masters Degree.
In my own case, I have held many full and part-time jobs (professor's
classroom assistant, farm laborer, nursing unit clerk, resume writer,
etc) to help pay expenses while I attended college. My bachelor’s
degree was in secondary education and I worked for three years as a
junior high school special education teacher. I also worked two years
as a legal clerk while in the army, a year as an industrial engineer
schedule planner in aerospace, three years as a management trainee and
bank operations manager, and five years as coordinator and director of
a non-profit organization. While I am not recommending that any
potential counselor hold that many different jobs, I am saying that
real-world experience (outside the counseling field) is extremely
valuable in counseling others.
Life experience in just living life is also valuable. Getting older
and passing through some of the life experiences that your clients are
experiencing enriches you and gives you depth. Imagine a 45 year old
business woman, mother of three, who needs mental health counseling
for some disturbing problem who finds herself discussing her problems
with a 23 year old young man or woman with a bachelor’s degree. How
much confidence
will she feel in her professional counselor?
Getting an Associates of Arts degree is not necessary when your
objective
is to obtain your Bachelor of Arts degree. However, having a
degree--whatever it is--is preferable to not having one. Many people
complete three years of college and then are forced by circumstances
to drop out. They can say that they have three years of college, but
no one can quite be sure what that means. Three years of college that
you took 10 years ago may be completely discounted by universities or
employers, but a degree is forever. The degree means that you had the
organization and discipline to pursue a recognized course of study and
complete it.
The AA degree is especially valuable when it qualifies you for
professional employment so you can get a job and generate more income
in support of further education. But I would not recommend any
two year degree in a field such as counselor.
People enter counseling through many degree fields. In Washington
State, persons from any degree background can register and work as
counselors in private practice. Washington and most other states have
higher requirements, usually a Masters Degree, a supervised
internship, two or three years of supervised work, and passing a
three hour examination--to become a “licensed counselor.”
I don't know the current psychology program at the U of W, but when I
looked into it years ago I found that they had a graduate program
leading to a doctor’s degree (PhD) but no master’s degree program.
They also told me that the graduate psychology program was not
clinical (working with people) but was oriented around animal behavior
studies. That was not something I wanted to study. Ask questions the
programs offered by universities--the focus and content of classes.
The psychology degree is only one of many fields that prepare students
to be counselors. Within a university there are many "colleges," each
offering their own degree. Counselors may attend the school of social
work and graduate with a BSW or continue for a MSW or Masters Degree
in Social Work (but it is important to find out whether the program
emphasis is on clinical work or on training administrators). The
college of education often has degree programs for a variety of counseling
specialties such as vocational
counseling, substance abuse counseling, and school counseling.
The University of Washington, like many universities today, has come
to depend on our excellent community college system. Most university
students now complete the first two years of study at a community
college before transferring to the university. This permits the
university to focus their resources on upper-level classes and it
permits students to stay closer to home and save tuition in their
first two years of college study. If you are planning to transfer to a
university, it is extremely important to work
closely with a community college academic advisor to insure that all
classes you take will be accepted by the university.
Finally, I believe many people get
caught up in studying psychology and
never consider whether it is a field of employment that they have a
genuine
aptitude for or whether there are job available in the field.
Unfortunately, too many people are just fascinated and want to study
psychology and human behavior. Most disturbing are those seeking
answers to their own emotional problems instead of getting therapy.
They seek knowledge for the wrong reasons and even though they get the
degree, they may be psychologically inappropriate for work as
therapists.
It is my impression that (just as in law school or journalism studies)
many more people are training to be counselors than will ever find
employment in the field. Others will find a counseling job and then
spend their careers complaining that they (along with almost everyone
else in the social services or human services field) are underpaid and under-appreciated. I spent seventeen years working as a chemical dependency
counselor for the county public
health department in a large inpatient treatment program and in two
jails. Would you enjoy working with chronic alcoholics
and addicts.
Many graduates will try to make a living in private practice. Pick up
the Yellow Pages in any major city and look for listings under
"counselors," "social workers," and "hypnotherapists." There are pages
of them! Starting a private practice is an extremely slow and
discouraging process. Seldom, if ever, is there a steady supply of
clients.
Being in private practice is running
your own small business. It requires business knowledge and business
skills beyond those taught in counseling classes. Many beginners start
with the mistaken belief that having a yellow-pages business telephone listing,
business cards and an office is enough. Client will start coming in the
door. Won't they......? (Nope. Not enough to keep a
starving counselor alive.)
But you are on the right track. Good career planning requires you to ask
questions of people who actually work in the field. Call up a few
counselors in various areas of counseling; tell them that you are
interest in finding out the advantages and disadvantages of their
career field. Offer to meet them for a cup of coffee to talk about
their work. Sure they are busy, but they spend so much time
listening--they might enjoy a chance to talk for a change.
Sincerely,
Floyd Else, MA, LMHC, NCC, MAC
For a list of Accredited
Counseling Programs: See CACREP, the
Council for Accreditation of
Counseling and Related Educational Programs. From the left
menu list, select "Directory of Accredited Programs."
Washington State
regulations governing counselors: The Washington State
Department of Health provides an
"A to Z" index for all the health professions regulated by Health
Professions Quality Assurance. Find the type of counseling
you are interested in and click on the link and you will be taken to
a page of information regarding the requirements for that licensure
or certification.
Discussion of difference between PhD and PsyD programs.
Requirements for becoming
licensed or certified as a counselor:
Information about the laws and procedures governing
the practice of counseling.
Also see
mental health counseling jobs and chemical dependency jobs.
All Psychology Schools
is a site that features all the colleges and universities in the
country that offer different kinds of degrees in psychology.
Remember, however, these schools will not include those offering
degrees in counselor education, social work or other areas that
prepare counselors.
