From health psychologist to psychotherapist
34 of the 73 essential skills of a psychotherapist are already essential for a health psychologist — about 47% of the job, before you learn anything new.
These numbers compare two occupations, not you and a job. What you personally already cover depends on what you have actually done.
- 34
- skills carry over
- 39
- would be new
- 47%
- of the target job covered
- 73
- essential skills of a psychotherapist
What a psychotherapist does
Psychotherapists assist and treat healthcare users with varying degrees of psychological, psychosocial, or psychosomatic behavioural disorders and pathogenic conditions by means of psychotherapeutic methods. They promote personal development and well-being and provide advice on improving relationships, capabilities, and problem-solving techniques. They use science-based psychotherapeutic methods such as behavioural therapy, existential analysis and logotherapy, psychoanalysis or systemic family therapy in order to guide the patients in their development and help them search for appropriate solutions to their problems. Psychotherapists are not required to have academic degrees in psychology or a medical qualification in psychiatry. It is an independent occupation from psychology, psychiatry, and counselling.
What carries over
34 skillsEssential in both jobs. This is the part of the move you have already made.
- accept own accountability
- adhere to organisational guidelines
- advise on healthcare users' informed consent
- apply context specific clinical competences
- comply with legislation related to health care
- comply with quality standards related to healthcare practice
- contribute to continuity of health care
- counsel clients
- develop a collaborative therapeutic relationship
- empathise with the healthcare user
- ensure safety of healthcare users
- follow clinical guidelines
- formulate a case conceptualisation model for therapy
- health care occupation-specific ethics
- interact with healthcare users
- listen actively
- manage healthcare users' data
- perform therapy sessions
- prescribe psychotherapeutic treatment
- promote psycho-social education
- psychiatry
- psychological diagnostics
- psychology
- psychopathology
- psychopharmacology
- respond to changing situations in health care
- respond to healthcare users' extreme emotions
- support patients to understand their conditions
- therapy in health care
- use clinical assessment techniques
- use e-health and mobile health technologies
- use techniques to increase patients' motivation
- work in a multicultural environment in health care
- work with patterns of psychological behaviour
What would be new
39 skillsEssential for a psychotherapist and not for a health psychologist. Note that the taxonomy describes activities rather than tools, so some of these may be things you already do under a different name.
- body language
- clinical social work
- communicate in healthcare
- conceptualise healthcare user’s needs
- conclude the psychotherapeutic relationship
- conditions for the professional practice of psychotherapy
- conduct psychotherapy risk assessments
- decide upon a psychotherapeutic approach
- diagnose psychiatric symptoms
- discuss the end point of therapeutic intervention
- disorders affecting self-awareness
- encourage healthcare user's self-monitoring
- evaluate practice in psychotherapy
- handle patient trauma
- historic development of psychotherapeutic schools
- history of patient's psychotherapeutic problems
- identify mental health issues
- keep up with current trends in psychotherapy
- maintain personal development in psychotherapy
- manage personal professional development
- manage psychotherapeutic relationships
- monitor therapeutic progress
- organise relapse prevention
- personality development theories
- promote mental health
- provide a psychotherapeutic environment
- provide treatment strategies for challenges to human health
- psychiatric disorders
- psycho-social forms of intervention
- psychological theories
- psychosomatics
- record the outcome of psychotherapy
- scientific research methodology
- supervision of persons
- theories of personality
- use psychoeducation
- use psychotherapeutic interventions
- work on psychosomatic issues
- work with healthcare users under medication
Other moves from health psychologist
2 roles- clinical psychologist60 skills in common
- speech and language therapist32 skills in common
No account needed to start
How far are you from being a psychotherapist?
MyNodes reads your CV once, maps it to this same taxonomy, and shows you which roles you are already closest to and the few skills that would open the most doors. The file is deleted as soon as it has been read.