Counseling is one of several therapeutic professions in the United States. Cleveland State University offers programs in School Counseling and in Community Agency Counseling. The American Counseling Association has offered the following definition of professional counseling:

The application of mental health, psychological, or human development principles through cognitive, affective, behavioral or systemic intervention strategies that address wellness, personal growth or career development, as well as pathology.

The therapeutic professions include counseling, clinical social work, clinical and counseling psychology, family therapy, substance abuse counseling, and psychiatry. Each state decides how to license or certify each of the therapeutic professions.

Although similar in their applied settings, each therapeutic discipline differs in the type of training model employed. The counseling training model has been described as an "educator-practitioner" model. This model focuses more on clinical skills than research and encompasses treatment of pathology and facilitation of wellness.

Psychiatry is based in the medical model that currently has a strong bias in the biological bases of mental and emotional disorders. Social work uses an ecological model that focuses on client advocacy and psychology uses the scientist-practitioner model that tries to balance training in research and clinical skills.

Specializations across the therapeutic disciplines include substance abuse counseling (for which there is a separate certification in Ohio), and Marriage and Family Therapy which has its own licensure in many states.

Counseling and social work are master's level professions whereas licensure as a psychologist requires a doctoral degree and licensure as a psychiatrist requires a medical degree. A person should take into consideration their temperament and professional goals when trying to decide between different therapeutic professions and training programs.

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