Mental Health Counselor

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Assessment, Diagnosis, and Research Danielle Fleming April 15, 2012 When an individual decides to become a mental health counselor they take on numerous roles. These roles include the ability to assess, diagnosis and do research. Licensed professional counselors are allowed to provide diagnosis assessments in most states (Mears, 2010). Assessment Assessment is a broad term that includes many structured and unstructured processes for gathering information to understand the issues that bring people to counseling (Mears, 2010). When providing an assessment you want to ask the client questions that will provide you the proper information that you need to help assist your client. It is a broad umbrella term that includes intake interviews,…show more content…
If your child was diagnosed with Autism, you would have a better understanding and be more aware of why the behaviors are happening. Now that your child is diagnosed with Autism, you can now provide him / her with the proper support and services that they need. There are many systems that a counselor can use to name disorders but the two that are the most common are the DSM-IV-TR and the ICD-9 CM). CACREP (Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Program, 2008, Section 7.h) include the requirement for all professional counselors to have “an understanding of general principles and methods of case conceptualization, assessment, and/ or diagnoses of mental and emotional status (Mears,…show more content…
When a counselor provides an inaccurate diagnosis this is called misdiagnosis. According to Welfel and Patterson (2005), professional counselors are likely to make three mistakes in the assessment and diagnostic process (Mears, 2010). It is exceedingly important that counselors try not to misdiagnose clients because it may lead to a series of problems such as a delay in treatment, being provided the incorrect medication which may lead to other issues and it may cause a lack in the services and support the client may need. An example of a misdiagnoses is bi-polar disorder and depression, if a counselor does not take the time out to dig deep into the clients assessment the two disorders may be confused, which may lead to misusages of
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