Don’t worry about this being the start to a horrible joke. It’s not. Several times in meetings since I have been a part of DBSA & other support groups, there been many discussions as to what the difference is between those three titles listed above. Hopefully, these Venn diagrams below will clear things up a bit. One item I’m not sure is fully illustrated in these Venn diagrams is that the term, “therapist”, a shortened version of the word psychotherapist, which is an umbrella term which can include any of the follow: Psychologist, Counselor, Social Worker, & even a Psychiatrist or Psychiatrist Nurse Practitioner (although they rarely do psychotherapy these days).

Hopefully, this clears up some confusion. All of these Venn diagrams were adapted from several sources that had differing opinions on some minor aspects of the roles of these professionals but I tried to keep them as basic as possible to make them easily understood & be as less controversial as possible. That said, there are also some other minor items that needed to be generalized & may not be correct the world over. If anyone has questions or finds an error in these diagrams, please let me know. Thanks.

• Josh

P.S. I’m sorry for those reading this on a phone. The smaller text in diagrams below may hard to read but if you zoom in them, they will definitely be easier to read.