What’s the Difference Between a Care Counselor and a Therapist?

When it comes to your behavioral health, Cerebral wants to offer you the scope of care that best fits your needs and desires. As such, we provide two distinct care plans:

• For legacy clients who joined Cerebral prior to November 2022, our Medication + Care Management plan allows clients to meet with an assigned Care Counselor on a monthly basis. Cerebral Care Counselors are well-trained in therapeutic techniques, such as behavioral activation, motivational interviewing, and more. 
• Our Medication + Therapy plan allows clients to meet with a licensed Therapist who can  provide psychotherapy along with a wide range of therapeutic techniques.

The primary difference between Care Counselors and Cerebral Therapists is the scope and intensity of behavioral care being offered. While both professionals have backgrounds in mental healthcare (and some Care Counselors are fully licensed), the psychotherapy offered by our Therapists is more intensive in scope and duration than that offered by our Counselors.   

What do Care Counselors do?

Care Counselors help you manage your medication and give you psychosocial and behavioral health support. They don’t, however, do psychotherapy, which is what therapists do. Still, Care Counselors use many of the same techniques in their sessions that therapists use in psychotherapy. 

When you meet with your Care Counselor, you’ll discuss how your treatment plan is going and talk about your experiences and symptoms. Your Care Counselor will also introduce various behavioral health techniques such as mindfulness, meditation, breathing exercises, and grounding exercises. These techniques and skills have been shown to help ease anxiety, depression, and insomnia. Studies show that using these skills in combination with a medication plan is the most effective treatment for anxiety, depression, and insomnia.

Who are Cerebral therapists?

All Cerebral therapists are licensed and have extensive training in evidence-based therapeutic practices. They also hold a graduate degree from an accredited institution. Your Cerebral therapist may hold a PsyD, a PhD, or be a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Licensed Professional Counselor, Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, or hold one of several other therapy licenses. 

Most of the techniques and modalities that our therapists use are CBT and DBT based. All our therapy sessions are based on traditional talk therapy and focus on evidence-based therapy practices. 

Although all our Care Counselors and therapists are trained in behavioral health techniques, each may have their own different specialties or experiences that may be more pertinent to your own personal interests and experiences. You can read about our therapists in the “Meet your team” section of the Cerebral website. 

UK clients: All Cerebral therapists are UK registered therapists with training in evidence-based therapeutic practices. They typically hold registrations with either the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) or The Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC). Care Counselors have the same qualifications but are only met once a month for 30 minutes as opposed to weekly for 45 minutes.