How to become a marriage counselor: You want to become a marriage counselor; you need someone to guide you on how to become one. Here is the best platform you can get such advice. We are meant to provide the best solution to your problems.
Sometimes, it seems so easy to mention becoming a marriage counselor, but the truth is that it is not as easy as we think. You will have to go through some series of processes before you can become a marriage counselor. It could begin from earning a bachelor degree in psychology up until the master’s level in mental health programs.
If you are still reading the article up to this point in time, it actually means you are fully ready to learn the guides to becoming a marriage counselor. For this beautiful courage of yours, here are the guides mentioned below:
Who is a Marriage Counselor?
A marriage counselor is a professional counselor and a licensed mental health practitioner specifically meant to handle the marriage issues arising between the couples. The duty of a marriage counselor is to ensure that a marriage is free from conflict and foul actions that are least expected in a marriage.
To some religions, such as Islam and Christianity, marriage is sacred and therefore should be single-handedly held in high esteem. No wonder, there is rapid growth in the number of people seeking relationship therapy in spite of how expensive it could be. As a would-be counselor, you have chosen the right course already. You will learn a lot and also through your professionally developed communications skills, will save many relationships. You will be trained to analyze the relationship status of various couples, from the multi-cultural background through a great level of patience and tolerance.
This means a marriage counselor is a highly disciplined person.
Why am I not yet a Marriage Counselor?
The very reason why you are yet to be called marriage is that you are still on the process. With time, you will get there. However, as a brief intro, the first step is to obtain a bachelor’s degree in psychology.
Here we go on How to Become a Marriage Counselor
You can obtain A Bachelor’s Degree in Related Courses
While this may not be important, you should note that there is no way you can obtain legally without passing through the bachelor’s degree in psychology or related courses in the college or university.
If you are a guru highly recognized for your outstanding knowledge about human behavior, perhaps, you may be given that honor. Are you such a guru? No?
Now, let’s continue.
In some schools, marriage counseling is not offered as a course, but you can study social work or other related courses to qualify you to study marriage counseling at the master’s level. Some candidate can study various causes in place of Marriage counseling at the bachelor level such as social psychology, cognitive psychology, social and interpersonal relationships.
Smart Note: If you really want to get the best out of this course, try and be diligent. Don’t lose focus on what brought you to the school—on-campus or online. Your target should always be your number one focus. Ensure that you maintain high grades throughout the course; this will create a better opportunity for a better master’s degree program ahead.
You can also obtain a Master’s Degree in Marriage Counseling
As I mentioned above, the master’s degree is another important requirement to become a marriage counselor.
The master’s degree focuses more on training you on the social science related aspect of marriage counseling. Courses are also offered in these course areas such as cultural diversity, couples therapy, family system sociology, adolescent, and marriage counseling ethics. The master’s degree equally features programs such as applied clinical and research experience – special programs. This obliged the students to have completed various credit and clinical research and fieldwork under the supervision of a professional counselor.
Any related certificates in Counseling and Psychology may also suffice on your journey to becoming a marriage counselor.
You have to acquire clinical experience as a marriage counselor
You must have equally acquired a clinical experience as a marriage counselor. This is usually required in other to build confidence in your clients. Remember, we have a lot of fake marriage counselors out there; this is one of the major challenges faced by many homes.
They invite the wrong counselor with little or no experience of marriage counseling. The license requirements for a marriage counseling course depend on the state. In some states, it’s in a mandate to provide your license before you are allowed to practice marriage counseling. The clinical experience is acquired immediately after the master’s degree program. The programs are run in weeks and hours. However, the most acceptable marriage and family counselor requirements is two years.
You must be licensed
It is rare for someone without a license to practice marriage and family counseling. It could be a disaster or threatening to every home to invite a fake therapist. You must have studied marriage and family therapy at the master’s level went through a series of fieldwork, clinical experience and supervised by a professional counselor. After, all these steps, you will have to sit for a licensure exam depending on the state. As soon as you pass the exam, you are granted the license to practice marriage counseling.
If you want to stand out in the field of marriage and family counseling, kindly apply for earning an additional credential. You may want to obtain this optional certification: National Certified Counselor (NCC) from the National Board of Certified Counselors. Another way to stand out among your peers is to join National Associations e.g. American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy.
Apply for Continuing Education
95% of the states require that you obtain continuing education credits in order for you to be able to maintain or renew your marriage and family licensure. However, the rules and regulations for the application differ from states to states. For this reason, you will realize that most of the licenses expire annually or biannual basis and require completion of a maximum of 30 continuing education units to renew your license. However, another alternative to continuing education is to obtain a doctorate degree which will aid in expanding career opportunity in academy and research.
Importance or Benefits of becoming a Marriage Counselor
There must have been a basic reason that triggered your zeal to want to become a marriage counselor, for this reason, I will have been unjust to leave the benefit of becoming a family and marriage counselor untouched. I shall present below, various benefits of becoming a marriage and family Counselor.
You will get to work with new people with different background
It is always interesting working with different people, different background and reasons for invitations around the same marriage and family counseling. This act exposes you to a new experience every day as you will learn a new culture, characters, and attitudes and then be forced to think of how to provide the right answers to their problems.
Self-importance and satisfaction
You will enjoy self-satisfaction and honors knowing that you were able to help people solve their marriage and family issues. Such family members will never forget you. They will always remember the great impact you took in their marriage. Apart from securing a better marriage for the couples, you will have equally help people work through their mental and emotional disorder.
Your skill is in high demand this modern day
There is growth in marriage issues this modern day; therefore, it has made your skill a highly demanded one. People, that understand the value of marriage, will spend the end of their pockets to ensure they save their marriage from crumbling. It was predicted by BLS that, there will be a 19% increase in demand for marriage counseling from 2014 to 2024. Quite believe this, and my reason been that people are losing moral training at home, therefore, will result in many conflicts in marriages.
You will learn many psychological approaches to solve problems
There are various psychological approaches to deal with psychological instances, such as Solution Focused Therapy, or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. These skills are not only transferable but can be used to improve your personal life and also in other fields. This is one good benefit of becoming a marriage counselor. After all, you will also marry depending on your decision, however, if you marry, will serve as a rich knowledge in controlling your family affairs.
You will be an independent worker
One other advantage of becoming a marriage therapist is that you can be self-employed. As long as you are licensed and recognized in your state, this will equally enhance your credibility of giving marriage therapy individually to your clients.
Job opportunity
This skillful line is very lucrative these days, especially in the United States, if you are a counselor in one of the states, there is a high tendency to find a job in private or veteran centers.
You have a diverse role to play
As a therapist, you have a diverse role to play. You keep clients’ record, lead them, search for a solution with high brainstorming mood and in the end finally resolve the issue. This process alone builds your heart as well as your brain. This is one outstanding advantage for you.
Lifelong Learning Opportunity
Although you can’t escape this on a normal level, you must continue to learn a new thing every day in the form of continuing education. This is normally done in order to renew your license. It has to be so because, human behavior is diverse, and a continuous phenomenon that results in changes. As far as I am concerned, you can maintain your license by furthering your education either in continue education or an alternative which is known as a doctoral degree.
You will see the immediate impact of your service on your clients
How impressive it is when you realize that your clients are already responding to the treatment you are giving to them. You will feel at the top of the world. This is psychologically beneficial to you. You enjoy the impact of your service on yourself and on your clients.
Opportunity for Personal Growth
It grants you the opportunity for personal growth. The more you solve problems for people, the more you are exposed to new ideas to grow personally. You will find the opportunity to build yourself emotionally, physically and above all, your communication skill will be more effective.
You will grow your intuitive power
This kind of job demands high intuition. If you are psychologically weak in observing human attitude or behavior, it will be very difficult to help them on the issue at hand. In fact, this signifies that you equally need therapy. As a marriage counselor, you are naturally forced to develop an initiatory sense in order to understand and treat your clients. This in return builds you up personally.
Your job is the movable type
You can work from any location provided that your licensure is up to dates. What I mean is that – you can work from one state to the other. It is a skill and service, unlike a product whose movement may not be possible sometimes.
It is highly lucrative
Though, salary shouldn’t be your number one priority for any job opportunity – saving a life should. However, in marriage counseling, I guarantee that you will earn a decent living. This has always been a fact you should be proud of. For instance, BLS reported that in 2012, the average salary of a marriage counselor annually is was $46,670. The lowest earner as marriage counselor earned $25,540 while the first ten percent of them were able to earn an amount as high as $75,120.
This field is expanding every single day
People have realized that it is very important to invite professionals to help resolve their marriage issues rather than divorce. For this reason, the field expands the more people know about it. Being in a fast-growing field like this one could be mind-blowing.
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