Career avenues for one who wants to help the fight against anxiety?

December 19, 2015 11:36 AM

I would like to help people, maybe specifically teenagers, avoid being trapped in their lives by anxiety and save them some of the regret and difficulties I accrued. I believe if I turned my self seriously toward learning about it I could do some good. What sort of career avenues are there for someone interested in helping with this? And what sort of schooling do I need to have for them?

My last of three failed attempts to complete college was ten years ago. After years of being sure I never would, I'm lately considering returning. The reason my attempts failed was a serious and untreated anxiety disorder that I didn't even know I had. After many years of being sure I would never return, I am now 34 and stuck in the service industry and am seriously considering returning to school.

Though the field I have the most experience in is music I have long since lost any desire for trying a music degree again. The thing I have the second most experience in, unfortunately, is probably anxiety. I've spent the last five years trying my ass off to kick mine and in the process I have learned a ton about myself and about the way emotions work and ought to be dealt with. I would like to try to help other folks learn what I've learned so they can avoid some of the unpleasant things I've dealt with.

I have a therapist, and although he is a great therapist and has helped me a lot, his every day work life spent largely listening to the gripes of upper middle class folks like myself doesn't appeal much to me. There must be more community oriented acute work to do in this field, but I'm having trouble thinking much beyond school counselor.

Do you work in or near this field? What can I do to help? And what level of education do I need to get, and in what field? I know I can be a capable student now and achieve whatever degree of education I try for.

posted by TheRedArmy to Work & Money (6 answers total)

Therapists don't just need to be in private practice. There are school-based therapists (not generally the same as school counselors), therapists who work in agencies that serve low-income families, therapists who work in agencies that serve teenagers, therapists who work in locked psychiatric settings, etc. You may want to do more research on social work fields and see if anything resonates with your goals. (Music therapy is also a thing, but I don't know much about it and whether it's used to treat anxiety.)
posted by jaguar at 11:55 AM on December 19, 2015 [3 favorites]

When my Mom got her MFT she worked in a local agency that had her going to schools, jails, running drug groups, really whatever she was comfortable with. She loved it and it paid well. Now that she's older and getting ready to retire she's switched to listening to upper middle class people talk about their problems and isn't enjoying it as much, but the freedom to set her own hours is working well for her. She also has a terrible anxiety disorder and did not find that a hindrance.
posted by lepus at 12:30 PM on December 19, 2015

If you want to do direct work, i.e. individual or group therapy, you're going to need training in social work, counselling, or psychology, with a specialization in child and school or children and families, and registration with a professional college. The specific degree might be MSW, MSc, MA, or MFT offered through psychology, education, or social work departments. - research local state or province information to see which professions are a) protected and b) most commonly hired (in practice) by employers in your area.

Social work is the most versatile of these degrees, in that it's the most consistently recognized pretty much everywhere and usually involves at least some exposure to "macro" work, which could mean working to develop community programs and policy (again depends on the program). But people with any of those titles could do it, in theory, just depends on the context.

In my area at least there's also a program and profession called "child and youth worker", which I think involves a college-level diploma vs. a degree + masters (so shorter; less income to be expected, though). I believe they tend to work in community and agency settings. They might be more likely than the others to work in youth organizations that aren't directly involved in mental health but can make a difference (like with youth-oriented arts and sports organizations, doing things like running workshops and programs).

Along that line, if you were committed to a specific non-therapy-related practice that isn't directly therapy and wouldn't explicitly address anxiety, but that you believed could be helpful to people who suffer from it, you could get into that (e.g. music or other creative arts; yoga (and e.g. mindfulness meditation); tai chi) and run workshops or programs.

You could also look into nursing with a mental health specialization. Nurses also do community and agency work, run groups, and develop programs (usually in connection with a healthcare setting, not schools). Nursing is also a very versatile degree.

There's also back-end stuff helping to run charities and other organizations devoted to mental health and anxiety, and write policy. (If you never wanted to do therapy and were happy to do admin work, any BA would do. For policy stuff and more senior organizational roles, social work is a common background (but people with other titles do this too).

Things to consider: A lot of community work happening via charities depends on funding, which means jobs are often available on a contract basis. Depending on your area, you might not be able to expect a full-time salaried job if all you wanted to do was run youth programs, for e.g. More stable work would be coming through schools and hospitals. Re jobs with school boards: I understand that in the US, there are laws requiring school boards to make school counsellors available to students, so there are (I think, check) a fair number of permanent jobs available, depending on location. In Canada, school boards tend to contract these jobs out. Check your local labour market info for typical wages/salaries (they are not usually super high :/ but you probably know that and that's not why you want to do this).

If security and job stability's a concern: nursing and social work might be good bets, because these are "core" professions that could involve more kinds of work than mental health care and give you a chance to work in a broader range of environments (because mental health care is unfortunately optional in too many places). Schools (in the US) and hospitals might be better places to target for jobs than 3rd party organizations, but contract work is still likely for a while.
posted by cotton dress sock at 1:32 PM on December 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

For direct exposure to this type of work, in a casual, non-professional capacity, you can act as a "listener" on 7cups.com and sign up to be a listener to help teens deal with anxiety. YMMV.
posted by FiveSecondRule at 2:27 PM on December 19, 2015

I help teenagers-- mostly underprivileged ones-- with anxiety and other mental health issues. I'm a psychiatric nurse, working on an inpatient child/adolescent unit at a state facility. I completed a four year undergraduate degree (BSN), but I could do the job I'm in now with just an associates degree and RN accreditation.

There are a lot of different jobs at my hospital, requiring different degrees of education. Most of our direct care staff have no job-specific education and have not attended college, but they spend the most time with the patients and can have a huge impact. Our music therapist is very popular with the kids, and that might be a good way to combine your areas of expertise.
posted by bookish at 5:35 PM on December 19, 2015

I would echo those above and suggest you look at social work. A BSW would put you on a fast track to an MSW and the career you want. MSWs can pursue licensure as a therapist, but you might be more interested in a community based position working with young people. There is a lot of flexibility to explore these different aspects of helping people within social work, more so than if you pursued psychology or medicine.
posted by hydropsyche at 3:53 AM on December 20, 2015