Terminology and Psychotherapy Professions

What’s the difference between counseling, therapy, and psychotherapy?

Most of us in this profession a difference between those mental health terms! All three refer to the process of working with a counselor (or therapist or psychotherapist) to gain skills, support, or guidance in solving life’s problems. One of those terms might be used more than the others because of a person’s training or their license in mental health, or simply personal preference. Here at LifePaths, we tend to use the term counseling more often than the others.

What’s the difference between all the types of mental health professionals?

This is a common question, because there are so many terms or acronyms that name the work we do with our clients. And although there are many different types of licenses and degree programs, it isn’t easy to describe differences between professionals.  It may be more important to get what you need by focusing on a type of therapy you need (such as couples counseling or trauma counseling as an individual), and then evaluate counselors who seem best for you based on what their website says, or what it is like to talk with them.

What does it mean to be “licensed”?

In Colorado, there are licenses for all the designations listed below.  Anyone with those licenses has obtained a graduate degree (MA, MS, Psy.D., Ph.D. or MD), and that degree included some heavily supervised work with other professionals.  After that, the person has also done supervised work with another professional overseeing their competency “in the field.”

What does it mean to be “registered”?

In Colorado, mental health professionals used to be able to work with just a graduate degree before they obtain the licenses below, but they had to register with the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA) as a Registered Psychotherapist (previous to this we referred to this designation as “unlicensed psychotherapist.”

Here’s a brief description for the most common professional counseling designations in Colorado:

Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC): The training for an LPC can be in many areas of counseling including for family, marriage and couples counseling, play therapy for children, group therapy, and of course working with individuals. In these degree programs, you gain an extensive set of flexible skills that allows you to take your work as a counselor in many different directions.

Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT): LMFT’s gain a broad set of skills in marriage and family therapy in their degree programs. Professionals with an LMFT designation often work a lot with families, children, and couples but they work with individuals as well.

Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW): LCSW degree programs focus more on individual concerns and issues and although this can mean that an LCSW professional works mostly with individuals, they may also provide couples and family counseling.

Psychiatrist: Psychiatrists have a specialized medical degree, which allows them to prescribe medication with a focus on psychoactive medications for depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder for example. Most of the time, psychiatrists do not provide psychotherapy and only help people manage medications appropriately.

Psychologist: Psychologists have doctorate degrees, so they are doctors, but not medical doctors. They receive more education than LPC’s, LCSW’s, and LMFT’s who might be referred to as “Master’s Level Therapists.” Many times, psychologists work in very specialized areas such as forensic psychology (working with the court system), or providing psychological testing.

Registered Psychotherapist: In some states, and Colorado used to be one of them, you can practice psychotherapy without being licensed. 

Licensed Professional Counselor – Candidate: This is someone who has graduated with a master’s degree and is supervised by a licensed counselor to obtain Licensed Professional Counselor status. There are variations of this designation for marriage and family therapy candidates and social worker licensing candidates.

Which of these is the best at counseling?

You can’t tell that from these designations, unfortunately.  These designations give you some idea of how long a person was in training to work in mental health, and might also tell you a bit about the focus of that training.  We recommend that you talk with a potential counselor you think you want to work with, and get a feel for how they are as a person.

What do counselors mean by “good fit”?

The best indicator of getting the most out of counseling is whether you and the counselor have what we call a “good fit” together – which means that you are comfortable with this person, can be honest with them, and your personality styles match well to work together.