Psychotherapist Job Description

Psychotherapy refers to the interpersonal relationship that the psychotherapist shares with his patients, by which he undertakes counseling and aids the patients in dealing with the psychological problems that they might be facing.

A psychotherapist's qualifications encompass an array of roles, education, and training--the basic requirement of which is that of a master's degree in psychology, educational counseling, or social work. Psychiatrists, health workers, psychologists, and social workers may all have qualifications in psychotherapy and become psychotherapists.

The main aim of a counseling session is to increase the individual's sense of well-being. There are 3 modes of treatment which are used by a psychotherapist, these being dialog, communication, and behavior change.

This is the most important task of a psychotherapist--he or she takes a one-to-one session with the patient. These are conducted once a week or more for a span of 30 minutes to an hour. These sessions are used to assess the need of therapy, build trust, and explore issues faced by the client.

A very important aspect of a psychotherapist's job is that he/she has to get the patients to feel comfortable enough to open up so that they speak freely about their feelings, behavior and state of mind. For this to happen, the client and counselor need to develop a trusting relationship and that is where the skills of the psychotherapist come into play.

A psychotherapist has to conduct group sessions with people undergoing therapy in a clinical setting and take psychotherapy training sessions for other professionals, such as social workers, nurses and teachers.

Psychotherapists have to be up-to-date about the happenings in the research and development in their field. This can include evaluating and studying results of a therapy and writing reports on that and drawing conclusions from it.

At a senior level, a psychotherapist's job also involves supervising other psychotherapists. Psychoanalysis, behavioral and cognitive therapy, and hypno-psychotherapy are the therapeutic methods used by psychotherapists.

A psychotherapist's job is challenging, and sometimes comes with a lot of emotional and mental baggage. It is, therefore, very important for a psychotherapist to have a sense of empathy towards the patients, but at the same time, not get emotionally involved in them.