There can be a lot of confusion around the difference between clinical mental health counseling, psychology, clinical social work, and “therapy”. When folks think of therapy, typically they are thinking about psychotherapy, or talk therapy: a “therapist” sitting with a clipboard in a chair listening to a client talk from another chair or couch. So what makes clinical mental health counseling different from the other types of therapy? The short answer is: not much on the surface. I offer psychotherapy, and for the most part what you will experience with me might feel extremely similar with a clinical social worker. This may be because as psychotherapy clinicians, we are training in the same skills (e.g., Emotionally Focused Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, etc.). What sets clinical mental health counseling apart from social work, or social work from psychology, is our education and our origin stories. As a counseling student, I trained specifically as a clinician who views healing from an holistic lens. When I seek to understand you and your needs as a client, I look at the whole picture, from your childhood, to your work life, to your environment, to the social climate. Every counselor, every therapist, is different, however the core of who we are as clinicians and how we practice mental health care has a foundation rooted in our schools of thought and education.