Where to refer clients for mental health concerns: A brief reference guide for professionals
As I have noted before in my work, other professionals may find themselves confused when referring clients for psychotherapy for mental health concerns. Various different professional affiliations and titles within this field abound, to the extent that many general practitioners and other referrers simply default to referring to one type of professional. In reality, there are a large number of underutilised professionals in the mental health field because just how much they contribute is not well understood, and we can safely predict that this is contributing to situations in which there are long wait times for therapy because too many clients are being referred to one specific type of professional only.
For this reason, I have created this quick reference guide for professionals such as general practitioners. It does not replace professional advice and judgement, of course, but it will give you insight in to the versatility and capability of the different professionals so that you can make referrals with more choice.