Rehabilitation counseling, one of the 50 highest paying master’s degrees, has a lot in common with the field of mental health counseling. Both rehabilitation counselors and mental health counselors make a difference through helping people with their problems, including how they frame thinking about and coming up with solutions to problems that affect their lives in different ways. Some differences between these two professions include the client populations these different types of counselors serve, the breadth of job functions within these two fields and employment aspects like salary potential, job outlook and licensing requirements.
A More Specialized Patient Population
Although it may sound like a paradox, the field of rehabilitation counseling is at once more specialized and broader than the field of mental health counseling. That’s because rehabilitation counselors work specifically with clients who have some form of disability or chronic illness or medical condition. Mental health counselors, on the other hand, may assist anyone who has a diagnosable mental health condition or who would benefit from counseling interventions in their relationships, self-perception and self-esteem or simply stressful life events.
That said, these differences aren’t always as cut and dried as they may seem. There are many different populations of patients with various types of disabilities that a rehabilitation counselor may work with, including physical disabilities, developmental disabilities, mental disabilities and emotional disabilities, the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported.
Given the breadth of potential patient populations and the similarities between some job roles of rehabilitation counselors and mental health counselors, there’s some overlap between these professions. Not only are mental and emotional disabilities, for example, something that a patient may also choose to see a mental health counselor for, but a patient whose physical disabilities affect their mental health could also turn to a mental health counselor for help.
Mental health counselors often specialize in their area of practice, and that specialization may be relevant to a client with a disability. For example, if the injury resulted from an accident or assault, a trauma counselor can help the individual cope with PTSD.
A Broader Scope of Job Duties
This overlap in who rehabilitation counselors and mental health counselors treat leads to the second major difference between the occupations, which is the broader scope of practice found in the former occupation. Some rehabilitation counselors provide the same sort of counseling intervention strategies that mental health counselors provide, but with a deeper foundation in disability and rehabilitation services. However, other rehabilitation counselors fulfill different job functions.
A rehabilitation counselor may focus more on advocacy on behalf of the disabled and on community resources and programs available to their clients. Often, rehabilitation counselors work in the area of job placement assistance or vocational rehabilitation services more generally, according to the BLS. In one of these job functions, a rehabilitation counselor might not provide direct counseling services, other than career and vocational counseling, to clients at all. That’s considerably different from a typical mental health counselor job, which generally revolves around assessing and diagnosing (if applicable) the client’s mental health needs and implementing therapeutic counseling interventions as part of a treatment plan.
A client without a disability or chronic medical condition typically wouldn’t go to a mental health counselor specifically for vocational assistance. Instead, that person would go to a different type of counselor, a career counselor.
Differences in the Careers of Rehabilitation Counselors and Mental Health Counselors
When it comes to actually working in these two occupations, there are some big differences. One of those differences is earning potential. As of 2019, the BLS listed a median wage more than $10,000 higher – $46,240, compared to $35,950 – for the combined occupations of mental health counselor, substance abuse counselor and behavioral disorder counselor than for rehabilitation counselors. These related occupations are also expected to grow at a considerably faster rate, 25 percent compared to 10 percent over a decade, although both mental health counselors and rehabilitation counselors can look forward to faster than average job growth projections.
The barrier to entry is somewhat higher for mental health counselors than for rehabilitation counselors. While only rehabilitation counselors who actually provide counseling intervention services are typically required to be licensed, all mental health counselors in all states must typically pursue licensure, according to the BLS.
Some students pursue a degree in both rehabilitation counseling and mental health counseling, whether to keep their career options wide open or just to help them develop a stronger set of complementary skills, such as developing a holistic approach to treatment.
Additional Resources
What Is Rehabilitation Counseling?
Are There Certifications I Need in Order to Get a Job in Rehabilitation Counseling?