In general, there are two kinds of therapist qualifications: (1) earned degrees and, (2) licenses and certifications. Some clinicians, of course, may have both.

Earned degrees

A high school diploma is nice, but not likely to be found on a therapist’s office wall since it is certainly not a qualification for treating psychological problems. There are, unfortunately, people out there without even this minimum education, uneducated charlatans in private practice taking money for their clumsy efforts. Telephone psychics may be the worse examples of the uneducated, boiler room crowd, but there are plenty of others. Let’s assume our prospective helper made it through high school and can read, write and do enough arithmetic to figure out your bill.

Junior and community colleges now offer various Associate Degrees. These are usually awarded at the completion of a prescribed two-year course of study that may be in the arts, human studies, or sciences. Some colleges offer technical degrees such as nursing assistant, inhalation therapist and so forth. Conceivably, you could find someone with an Associate Degree in psychology or human development who might specialize in addictions. However, they would probably not be in independent practice; such a clinician would most likely be working under the supervision of a more qualified professional in a group practice and might well be a recovering person or peer counselor with additional certifications.  Other holders of an Associate Degree may be found working in large organizations in human resources or personnel departments.

A peer counselor, by the way, is one who has recovered or is recovering from the illness he or she proposes to treat. The word peer means equal; in this case, equal in terms of having the same disorder. A paid peer counselor is, by definition, a professional who gets paid and has all the ethical and legal responsibilities of a professional counselor; this is someone who has additional documented and supervised experience in the field, and who is certified in the specialty. The scope of a peer counselor’s treatment is, of course, very limited, so that is why treatment supervision and client assessment by a more generally qualified practitioner is necessary. In my own experience, it is very rare to see an addict enter treatment with just one problem; it is equally rare to see a peer counselor concentrate on anything more than one problem. That, I think, is just the way it should be. Peer counselors are essential in the total team effort, and it is not hard to see their contributions. What is hard to believe is that some few decide they are experts on everything, and these few may block or discourage clients from going to others for help with other problems.

If you find a recovering peer counselor working alone without the support of a professional team and with no advanced academic training, I would suggest you walk away. A sponsor in a Twelve Step group will do a far better job of helping you while following the guidelines of that organization. And, of course, the price could not be lower since it’s free. It is a violation of Twelve Step principles for recovering addicts to take money for helping fellow addicts. It is also against principles to use a meeting as a way of finding clients for a paid practice, for turning their recovery into a business, or for telling their personal story in public just to recruit business.

As a side note in the discussion of earned degrees, I was recently surfing around the Internet and found about a dozen companies offering fake academic degrees. Some use names similar to those of famous universities, and it would require close study to tell that they are fakes. Again, let’s just stand there and read those pieces of paper on the office wall carefully.

A Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) or a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree indicates the completion of a four-year college program in which the student had both a major and a minor subject of study. While there are employment opportunities for the holder of a four-year degree, these probably would not be in independent practice. Most states now recognize and license sub-professional clinicians such as Psychology Assistant or Physicians Assistant who work under the supervision of a fully licensed psychologist or physician.

Many nurses become excellent psychotherapists; the R.N. behind the name stands for Registered Nurse. Such a person may have completed work beyond the basic college degree, in which case they may show a Bachelor of Science (B.S.), a Master of Science (M.S.) or even a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in nursing. A Clinical Nurse Specialist is a nurse with advanced experience and training that would qualify him or her for independent practice in certain areas such as addiction or in other medical specialties.

Social workers are often found either in a group or independent practice, and you may find a Social Work Assistant with just an Associate Degree; but most social workers have training to the Masters level with at least two years of study and practical experience beyond the four year Bachelors Degree. There are many specialty areas within social work.

A Doctoral degree is based on study and experience beyond the Masters level. The Ph.D.—Doctor of Philosophy—is the highest degree you can obtain in course work, meaning that it is the most advanced degree awarded as a result of academic study and research. The Ph.D. involves the completion of original research reported in a doctoral dissertation. It is the last degree to be awarded in graduation ceremonies and, historically, the most ancient of all the advanced degrees.

An M.D.—Doctor of Medicine—is awarded following completion of a four-year medical school that comes after the four-year pre-med undergraduate college program. A year of practical internship is required, and most physicians complete further supervised experience in a residency program. If a medical doctor completes a residency in psychiatry, he or she has specialized in that field, but any general practice physician can, and often does, prescribe psychoactive medications for depression and other mental problems. In a few states, Ph.D. level psychologists with special training may prescribe such medication.