What Does a Therapist Do?

Fundamentally, therapists help people overcome their problems. These problems can come in a wide variety of forms and can include substance abuse problems, interpersonal problems with family members or coworkers, or behavioral disorders. What a therapist does depends largely on the type of therapist they are. For example:

1. An occupational therapist helps people with temporary disabilities return to their prior level of functioning, and helps people with permanent disabilities live more independently on a day-to-day basis (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2015).
2. A recreational therapist uses recreational activities such as arts and crafts to help people improve their levels of well-being in general (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2015).
3. A marriage and family therapist might help resolve interpersonal issues between a married couple, as well as personal issues that either person in the relationship might have (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2015).
4. According to study.com, a behavioral therapist can help people change the way they behave, such as the way they react to something that often happens in their lives.
5. A CBT therapist might help someone identify thought patterns which lead to destructive behaviors and then help change those thought patterns (Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies).
6. Finally, a child therapist can help a child figure out why they cannot focus in school so that they can develop in a more healthy manner (Miller).

In other words, what a therapist does greatly depends on what type of therapist they are. Some therapists only treat people with mental illness, while some therapists treat people with mental illness as well as people who are more mentally healthy since some of the targets of therapy do not depend on the presence of mental illness.

At its base, though, the job of a therapist generally consists of helping someone improve their levels of well-being. Part of this is continuing education, as therapist sometimes have to help treat clients in ways they were not trained to, such as the case of marriage and family therapists who are treating clients interested in nonmonogamy (Bairstow, 2017).