Find a New Career as an Anxiety Counselor

An anxiety counselor collaborates with a patient to address the patient’s anxiety, its causes, and its effects to overall health and status. Anxiety counseling is rooted from mental health counseling, which is a dynamic and holistic treatment modality for simple psychosocial and emotional problems to mental illnesses.

Anxiety is a mood state characterized by uneasiness or worry with an unknown and uncontrollable or unavoidable cause. It is distinguished from fear, in that fear is caused by a known threat. Anxiety is a normal reaction to stress. It triggers people to be more alert and accomplish their tasks faster. However anxiety can be excessive and can cause disruptions in the normal course of a person’s life. Such condition is called anxiety disorder. It is this disorder that an anxiety counselor works on.

Aside from involving mental health counseling concepts, anxiety counselors incorporate strategies from behavioral disorder and rehabilitative counseling to address their patient’s anxiety. They are trained in therapeutic communication and tactics. They work in close relation with other mental health counselors, psychologists, school counselors, nurses, and other health related professions.

Job Security

The counseling profession is expected to boom by 21% between the years 2006 and 2016 despite economic volatility. Anxiety counselors would be employed to address needs in hospital and clinical settings. Because of this, counseling is listed as one of the top 25 fast growing occupations.

Anxiety counselors may opt to diversify their counseling ability by branching out into other forms of counseling.

Employment

Anxiety counselors are usually self-employed professionals. They put up their own clinics and take simple case referrals from the community. They may otherwise apply for counseling jobs at schools, psychiatric centers, hospitals, or affiliate with independent practice psychologists and psychiatrists.

Anxiety counselors can branch out of their specialty to provide other forms of counseling such as: career counseling, marriage counseling, teen counseling, and much more.

Qualifications

Educational requirements for anxiety counselors vary per state. Most would require a Master’s degree in counseling, behavioral sciences, or psychology; while others would accept a Bachelor’s degree. General counselor or anxiety counselor training programs are provided by universities and colleges under education or psychology departments. In some instances, before being eligible for a Master’s program, the student should have 48 to 60 semester hours of graduate studies and supervised clinical experience in counseling.

Additional training can be provided for by employers and associations that an anxiety counselor is a member of. They can also obtain training units from seminars and workshops coordinated by counseling associations, organizations, and hospitals.

Aspiring anxiety counselors should check with the state and local government, licensed counselors, and certifying organizations to determine the requirements to be obtained.

Licensure

Licensure requirements also vary per state, but most would offer a qualifying exam. Some would require anxiety counselors to have related work experience for a number of hours. Others require counselors to have earned a set number of units in continuing education, while others need counselors to have both counseling and teaching certificates.

Other Requirements

Personal qualifications include a strong desire to help others while being unbiased. Anxiety counselors should have the ability to command respect, trust, and confidence. They should be able to work within the principles of confidentiality and ethics. Counselors should be able to detach themselves from the patient’s emotional state to facilitate their counseling program. Lastly, they should be able to work either individually or in a team.