What is the difference between school counselors and school psychologists?

School counselors and school psychologists do different, though complementary, work. The school psychologist is more of a consultant who deals with specialized problems at the extremes of the normal behavioral distribution curve. The school counselor deals with the rest of the curve. Put another way, the counselor works with students who have academic, social, or family issues and need to talk them out or learn some specialized tools. These students have varying degrees of coping skills, but they are not dysfunctional in the family, school, or social setting. The school psychologist develops programs to help young people who are traumatized by a major event in their lives (divorce, violent incident, etc.) and who have become dysfunctional as a result.

School psychologists and school counselors work closely together and complement each other’s efforts. Both have a preventive role and treatment role. Counselors work with individual students on their particular stressors, and with agencies and social service organizations outside the school (e.g., free lunch programs) in order to make the school environment more conducive to a particular student’s learning needs. In addition to their work with very distressed students, psychologists work on systemic change such as teacher organization issues, MCAS preparation, etc., and will consult with psychologists outside the school. Generally, there is a counselor at each school while school psychologists are assigned to several schools in a district.