In plain English
Counselling is a master's-level licensed profession: a graduate degree, supervised post-graduate clinical hours, and a national examination. What varies, more than in any other clinical profession, is the name. Licensed professional counsellor, licensed mental health counsellor, licensed clinical professional counsellor and several other titles describe broadly the same licence in different states.
Beneath the counsellor classification sit distinct licences with distinct training: addiction and substance use counselling, marriage and family therapy, rehabilitation counselling, pastoral counselling and school counselling among them. They are not interchangeable, and not all of them are independently licensed everywhere.
So this entry is shorter than the rest on purpose. Because titles, scope and supervision requirements differ state by state, any confident sentence about what a counsellor may do nationally would be wrong somewhere, and the state licence is the only reliable answer. What the public record gives you is the classification and the specialisation each person filed, which is a sound basis for a list and a poor basis for an assumption.
A shorter entry, on purpose. Counselling titles, scope and supervision rules differ state by state, and we would rather say less here than publish a national rule that is wrong in a dozen states. The classification and specialisation each person filed is what a list is built on.
Training and credentials
A master's degree in counselling or a related field, supervised post-graduate clinical hours, a national examination, and a state licence whose title varies.
Where they practise
Independent and group practice, community mental health agencies, addiction treatment programs, schools and colleges, employee assistance programs, telehealth.
Counselors on the public record
Counted from what providers file about themselves, with suppression applied before anything is counted, refreshed 2026-10-05. Names, specialties and practice locations are public; work email and phone are for signed-in customers.
| State | On record | With work email | With practice phone |
|---|---|---|---|
| California | 80,405 | 56,780 71% | 80,398 |
| Texas | 43,050 | 22,133 51% | 43,043 |
| Washington | 36,515 | 24,088 66% | 36,511 |
| Florida | 33,327 | 18,722 56% | 33,324 |
| Ohio | 32,519 | 22,743 70% | 32,510 |
| Massachusetts | 32,290 | 20,818 64% | 32,282 |
| New York | 32,139 | 19,438 60% | 32,136 |
| Illinois | 29,096 | 17,005 58% | 29,091 |
Closely related, and where to find them.
Closely related
- Clinical social worker Therapy and the practical circumstances around it - and a very large licensed population.
- Psychologist The doctoral behavioural health profession, and the one that does formal assessment.
- Psychiatrist The prescribing profession in mental health, and how it is filed on the record.
Find them
- Counselors list counts by state, the fields a record carries, a sample record.
- Mental health psychologists, counsellors and clinical social workers, with psychiatrists counted separately as a physician specialty.
Need the list, not the definition?
A free account builds this population with your own filters and shows what each record carries before anything is bought.