PMHNP How much therapy do you do?

[elizabelle]

Hi,

I am interested in knowing for all of you PMHNP's out there, how much is therapy a part of your practice? Do you primarily manage meds? How do you view your role vs. that of a clinical psychologist?

Thanks for your thoughts!

[al dente]

I'm both a clinical psychologist and PMHNP. Your services as a PMHNP will be in demand because of the ability to prescribe. No agency, hospital, or organization will pay you to do therapy. In agency settings, therapy is usually done by MSWs and LPCs because they are readily available and cheap. As a PMHNP, the only real place you have the opportunity to do therapy is in private practice. But, if therapy is what you're interested in, you probably won't get good therapy training in a PMHNP program; you'll need to do postgraduate training.

[Smitty08]

I agree with al dente, above, however my particular program was probably better than most in preparing therapists so I feel well prepared adn comfortable doing therapy. Also because I had challenging clinical placements where I had to confront varied situations that arise in therapy. I do see one client now for therapy, only one out of a huge caseload. Its mostly medication management, assessments and such. I don't think I'd personally like too much therapy, and I do integrate some therapy, much teaching into a shorter med visit.