What Do the Letters After a Mental Health Provider’s Name Mean?

This page describes how the mental health care system in the United States is generally structured. It is not medical advice.

Mental health providers often have multiple letters listed after their name. These are credentials. They communicate a provider’s background.

What Credentials Actually Mean

There are three main categories of credentials. A degree (e.g., PhD, MSN, MSW) indicates the educational program a provider completed. A license (e.g., MD, APRN, LPC) is legal permission to practice, granted by a state. A certification (e.g., PMHNP-BC) indicates a provider has met standardized requirements in a specific specialty area.

Degrees vs Licenses

Degrees and licenses are not the same thing. A license offers more insight into what services a provider can offer. For example, both a counselor (MS, LPC) and nurse practitioner (MS, APRN) can have a Master of Science (MS) degree; the MS degree completed by the counselor will have been in counseling, and the MS degree completed by the nurse practitioner will have been in nursing. While these degrees are both listed as “MS” and don’t communicate the area of study, the licenses (i.e., LPC and APRN) communicate that a provider is a “Licensed Professional Counselor” and “Advanced Practice Registered Nurse", giving them legal permission to practice as a counselor (offer therapy) and nurse practitioner (prescribe medications, within scope) within their state.

Some professions also have two stages of licensure - a supervised license, which allows practice under oversight, and an independent license, which does not require supervision. For example, an LSW (Licensed Social Worker) is a supervised license, while an LCSW (Licensed Clinical Social Worker) is the independent stage of the same profession.

Variation

License names, abbreviations, and requirements are set at the state level, which means the same role may carry different credential letters depending on where a provider practices.

Want to Learn More?

The Mental Health System Toolkit and the Mental Health System Toolkit: Providers Bundle ‍expand upon these concepts and explain mental health providers’ education, licensing, and credentials in depth.

For an overview of common mental health provider types, visit Mental Health Providers, Explained