Professional clinical mental health counseling (CMHC) is a fairly new profession that is still working to establish a strong identity and distinct boundaries. Psychologists and social workers have a much more solidified identity, and scope of practice. CMHC boasts one of the longest masters level programs, and it is because we specialize ONLY in professional counseling. CMHC is preventative, and holistic. It focuses on empowering the individual to make the needed changes to overcome life's difficulties, in congruence with their worldview, convictions, and culture. Although perhaps there is a slight overlap into social work and psychology, and psychological research is used by counselors to promote evidenced based practice in the counseling room; psychology is generally not preventative. Psychologists spend their masters and doctoral career conducting research in a mostly sterile environment with little client interaction. Social workers focus mainly on connecting clients with community resources and intervening for children in unacceptable living conditions. In contrast, CMHCs spend their ENTIRE masters career training for only one thing: to use evidence based practice techniques and methods to help clients overcome life's difficulties. Psychologists simply conducting research does not qualify them to adequately apply research studies and statistics to counseling practice. In fact, without the client exposure and training in counseling methods and techniques, the results could be extremely detrimental to the client. I do realize that before CMHCs existed, psychologists conducted the counseling. However, now we have professionals being thoroughly trained for counseling, and counseling ONLY. If a CMHC cannot be grandfathered into social work or psychology without any further training, education, or exams (which they would never allow us to do) then this should not even be considered the other way around. This would water down and be detrimental to CMHCs working hard to establish their own individual identity. For a CMHC to become a psychologist they must attend 4 more years of college on top of the 3 they already attend to achieve their masters/counseling license (as well as an additional 2 years of residency). It is simple, if psychologists would like the right to counsel, they need to specialize in CMHC, just like the counselors, so that clients are not harmed by individuals that are not adequately prepared. In my own experience, I was counseled for a short time by a psychologist who committed some of the very mistakes we learned within our first week of classes not to make and she was a PhD psychologist! It is a matter of "bedside manner," as we say in the medical field, and people skills which most psychologists, in my experience, do not possess. The scope of practice for social workers seems too vastly different to even be considered to counsel without formal training, so I will not use any more space to explain why I believe this to be so.