Consultation Vs Counseling
In the world of supporting parents and helping children, there are two main supports out there. Counseling and Consulting. Both provide support in their own way and both can be very helpful, but sometimes even therapists and consultants aren’t sure the differences.
Counseling is a higher level of care and is mainly separated from consulting by a few main differences.
Training: Counselors have gone to school for many years. Personally, I was in school for 8 years to become a therapist. It took me 5 years for my bachelors degree and another 3 for my masters, but our training doesn’t just stop at school. State licensing boards will give a license to someone once they have completed their master’s degree, but they will only give what is called a dependent license. This means they are able to provide therapy services, but it has to be under the supervision of an independent therapist. Therapists are usually in this dependent status for 2-3 years depending. Then, they have to take another test to be able to get licensed as an independent therapist.
This is just the process to earn the independent license. In order to maintain our licenses, we have to complete several hours of training every two years in order to be eligible to have our license renewed.
Licensing: Counselors, psychologists, social workers all have one main thing in common. Apart from their desire to help people, they are all licensed to provide mental health services. This license gives them permission to diagnose and treat mental health disorders.
Diagnosis and Treatment: Therapists have been trained to diagnose and treat mental health disorders. This means they are allowed to use the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) or the ICD (International Classification of Diseases) in order to diagnose mental health disorders such as anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, PTSD. Once they have diagnosed it, they then are able to develop an evidenced based treatment plan to treat the disorder.
Evidenced based treatment, medical necessity, and insurance. While many counselors do not accept insurance, they are able to bill insurance for the treatment of mental health disorders. They are required to use evidenced based treatments for disorders, stay up to date on what treatments are effective and which are not, and, especially if billing insurance, must be able to describe medical necessity in their notes about the sessions. Medical necessity basically means they are describing the reason that it is medically important for someone to be receiving counseling services.
How Consultants are different:
Training &Licensing: While there are training programs out there for consultants, you do not have to have training to become a consultant. Anyone can become one. This is why it is important to ask about a consultants qualifications prior to signing up for services with them. There are some amazingly well qualified consultants out there who can provide high quality care, but there is not a licensing board where they have to prove they are qualified to provide care.
Diagnosis and Treatment: This is one of the primary areas where consultation and therapy differ. While a therapist is going to evaluate, diagnose, and treat mental health disorders, consultants are not permitted to provide this level of care. Consultants, however, are able to provide support to people who are dealing with life struggles; they are going to be more focused on helping their clients around strategies, techniques, and skills they can use to resolve issues they are having in their lives.
Evidenced based treatment and insurance. Consultants cannot bill insurance companies. While they can provide evidenced based care, they are not bound to only use treatments which have been shown to be effective. This is both good and bad. The bad is they may be able to use services that have not been found to be helpful and can lead to wasting money and time; at the same time there are many services that therapists cannot provide due to their ethical code that consultants can. One that comes to mind is yoga. Yoga has many benefits, but a therapist would not be allowed to do Yoga with a patient because there is not enough evidence and they have to be cautious about dual relationships. Consultants do not have this same limitation.
So do you need a therapist or a consultant?
If your doctor or pediatrician recommend it or you are concerned about a mental health issue like ADHD, bipolar, anxiety, or depression; you will want to work with a therapist.
If you are having struggles and you are looking for strategies to help, want the care without the label, or if you are struggling but a therapist, doctor, or insurance company has said you aren’t eligible for counseling then a consultant can be a fantastic option.
