Marriage and family therapists work with individuals, couples, and families to help build better relationships and address underlying issues. Despite outliers with six-figure salaries, this is one field where experience and education do not explicitly yield greater returns. Peter Samis via Compfight cc. Due to rapidly changing and evolving job markets, students and professionals often seek the aid of career and vocational counselors to help them establish career paths best suited to individual strengths and weaknesses.
Career and vocational counselors employ personality tests and other assessments to determine the type of careers in which an individual is most likely to excel. Typically these programs are directed at helping individuals with mental or physical illnesses or disabilities.
Since this is a relatively new field it offers growing opportunity and flexible salaries. Photo Credit: deltaMike via Compfight cc. Mental health counselors help people with problems concerning their personal lives and their emotional and mental well-being such as marital, family, and education problems, and substance abuse issues.
In order to garner high salaries, mental health counselors must be experienced and educated, and as such lucrative paths within this career are highly competitive. KJGarbutt via Compfight cc. Substance abuse counselors help individuals overcome physical, mental, and emotional reliance on drugs. They work extensively with addicted individuals to help them overcome their vices. As addiction and substance abuse becomes more covered by insurance companies, the industry and earnings grow, with growth projected at 31 percent through Professionals on this career path seeking higher salaries should seek doctoral education and apply for positions at high-end treatment centers, where salaries can jump into the six digits.
Cayusa via Compfight cc. Listed below is a breakdown of the most important underlying trends and factors at play in the most lucrative and viable career paths. Although these points are drawn from this analysis of the best careers in psychology, they certainly apply to career choices in general and outside of this focus. Also, education may make up for a lack of experience.
Experience is a golden ticket on any career path. Developing a formidable background in your specific field of work will set you apart from the pack, and make you a prime candidate for those more competitive and high-paying positions. Do your homework. The Bureau of Labor Statistics Website Homepage offers great information concerning the estimated growth of industries for years to come.
Most industries and careers contain small niches of specialization. Few make the time and effort to become experts in such specialties, but those who do are rewarded significantly. So many of the obstacles blocking the way to higher salaries and other opportunities are arbitrary. Stay in the habit of improving your skillsets and making yourself more competitive in your field to earn the job you want and the salary you deserve.
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Earn your degree in 18 months. No specific professional background necessary. Request Info. Sponsored Content. PsyD vs. Perhaps the most generalist role in all of psychology, Clinical Psychologists assess and treat emotional and behavioral disorders.
These psychologists study the way that individuals relate to their communities and places they live and how those places impact emotional and behavioral responses of the people who live in them. Spiritual Psychologists provide assessment and mental health treatment services that align with a faith tradition. These Sports Psychologist professionals provide diagnostic and treatment services to athletes, often being brought in as independent consultants for professional sports figures who are experiencing mental blocks regarding their athletic performance.
Child Psychologists assess, diagnose and treat behavioral and emotional disorders in children, adolescents and teens, and they sometimes will need to work with other mental health professionals to manage patient progress. Counseling Psychologists may conduct one-on-one or group counseling sessions, and they most often will specialize in one or more areas, such as couples or substance-dependent individuals.
These professionals may work within healthcare, educational or even government settings, and they are responsible for providing emergency counseling services to prevent suicide and self-harm, as well as helping individuals deal with violence.
Marriage and Family Therapists work with partnered or married couples, families and other closely bonded groups to ensure the group functions as well as it can. This could include addressing an acute mental health issue faced by one of the group members, but the group dynamic is the primary focus. These professionals help people cope with depression, anxiety or other emotional issues by developing hobbies or other recreational outlets.
Substance Abuse Counselors provide treatment strategies and therapy services for individuals who are dealing with alcoholism, drug addiction or other chemical dependency problems.
These individuals help others develop habits and thought patterns to overcome negative or unhealthy behaviors, and they may work in independent practice or within hospitals or clinics. Licensed Professional Counselors may be generalists who provide counseling services to a range of clients, or they may specialize in a specific group, such as teens or the elderly.
Art Therapists use the creative process to help clients explore their emotional and behavioral problems and develop tools to reduce and eliminate the negative effects of these problems.
Executive Coaches train, mentor and guide high-level employees within organizations, up to and including C-suite professionals, depending on the needs of the individual.
This could mean helping executives and company leaders learn to be more decisive or leading them to adopt new methods for encouraging collaboration among lower-level workers. Executive Coaches are most often independent contractors who run their own business, and this allows them to set their own schedules and rates.
Coaches with MBAs or high-level psychology degrees like Psy. This is a specialty area within industrial-organizational psychology. Broadly, this field of psychology covers the study of work and the people who do it, so Industrial-Organizational Psychologists could find jobs in many other areas and industries, or they could specialize in one aspect, such as personnel research or benefits.
Found in medium and large organizations, and even in some small ones, HR Directors manage all aspects of the staffing side of a business, nonprofit, school or government agency. In some cases these jobs are highly technical, while in others they are more theoretical, but Human Factors Engineers are in charge of designing objects, programs and facilities taking into account the mental relationship between humans and machines. A Business Process Consultant is usually an outside contractor who studies a specific process within an organization, such as how staff are trained and mentored, and makes recommendations to improve the process.
As a psychologist, an Educational Psychologist will need a doctorate, such as a Psy. Rather, Educational Psychologists study and implement learning systems within schools, colleges and professional programs.
School Psychologists work in elementary and secondary schools to identify behavioral and emotional issues within students and help treat them. In this position, which requires many years of study, including medical school and residencies, you will mainly work within the prison and legal system. You will monitor and diagnose patients who have mental illnesses. As a gerontologist, you will focus specifically on the field of aging.
As with psychiatry, you will usually be required to hold a medical degree in order to start this profession, including a four year residency and a specialization in both gerontology and psychology or psychiatry.
Your role will be to analyze the behavior of elderly people in order to help them enrich their overall quality of life. Engineering psychology is even newer than industrial organizational psychology, and the growth in this field is even quicker. These psychologists focus on finding ways to enhance human behavior through technology.
These careers are some of the most rewarding of all, as they enable people to work in a way that is safe at all times, but also productive and enjoyable.
A doctorate degree is generally required in this field. Just as with the industrial organizational psychology, there are huge variations in salary depending on where you work, and how long you have worked. This is a specialized field of psychiatry, whereby you will work with patients who have been admitted to hospitals or other such facilities due to their mental health problems.
Your role will be to analyze and diagnose thoughts and behaviors and to come with a treatment plan. This includes ordering tests, prescribing medication and determining the best type of therapy. The position of child psychiatrist is the most in-demand specialization within the field of psychology. As a child psychiatrist, just as with a regular psychiatrist, you do have to complete medical school and a residency as well. However, the residency here lasts eight years, rather than four. Becoming a psychiatrist takes even longer than becoming a psychologist.
This is also why it is one of the highest paying options in this field. To become a psychiatrist, however, you will need to complete around eight years of post-undergraduate study. You must also graduate from medical school and do a full four year residency.
This does earn you the ability to prescribe psychiatric medication, however, so long as you are properly licensed and registered. Interestingly, this field of work requires slightly less education, with some completing a specialization in therapeutic practice in between six and eight years.
However, the higher your education, the more you can earn. A very important factor in how much you can earn is reputation. This is because you will work independently, so the patients you manage to attract will dictate how much you can charge as well. There is a rise in demand for private practice psychologists, and this is steadier than in the overall field of psychology.
This is, again, because you work for yourself so your success will depend more on the ability to attract new clients than on the demand itself. As a neuropsychologist, you will study cognition and the brain.
More often than not, you will develop assessments after brain injuries, perform brain scans and create other types of cognitive diagnostic tests. Research on drugs, learning and the process of cognition will also be something you will likely be involved in.
In most cases, neuropsychologists work for hospitals, mental health clinics and universities. A doctorate degree in clinical neuropsychology or regular neuropsychology is required.
The average earnings for a sports psychologist is not one of the highest in the field of psychology. However, there is a chance that you can get to work for a national team, particularly in sports that gather a lot of national interest. Your role will be to determine the impact of stress levels and competitive environments, helping to avoid burnout and managing a life of potential fame. This is a relative new field of psychology and interest in it is very high. Because it is a relatively new field with such high demand, people can negotiate very interesting salaries.
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