Psychiatric Technician Care for individuals with mental or emotional conditions or disabilities, following the instructions of physicians or other health practitioners. Monitor patients' physical and emotional well-being and report to medical staff. May participate in rehabilitation and treatment programs, help with personal hygiene, and administer oral or injectable medications.
Psychiatric Technician is Also Know as
In different settings, Psychiatric Technician is titled as
- BHT (Behavioral Health Technician)
- Health Care Technician (Health Care Tech)
- LPT (Licensed Psychiatric Technician)
- Mental Health Associate
- Mental Health Specialist
- Mental Health Technician (MHT)
- MHA (Mental Health Assistant)
- MHW (Mental Health Worker)
- Psychiatric Technician (PT)
- Residential Aide (RA)
Education and Training of Psychiatric Technician
Psychiatric Technician is categorized in Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed
Experience Required for Psychiatric Technician
Previous work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is required for these occupations. For example, an electrician must have completed three or four years of apprenticeship or several years of vocational training, and often must have passed a licensing exam, in order to perform the job.
Education Required for Psychiatric Technician
Most occupations in this zone require training in vocational schools, related on-the-job experience, or an associate's degree.
Degrees Related to Psychiatric Technician
- Bachelor in Psychiatric/Mental Health Services Technician
- Associate Degree Courses in Psychiatric/Mental Health Services Technician
- Masters Degree Courses in Psychiatric/Mental Health Services Technician
Training Required for Psychiatric Technician
Employees in these occupations usually need one or two years of training involving both on-the-job experience and informal training with experienced workers. A recognized apprenticeship program may be associated with these occupations.
Related Ocuupations
Some Ocuupations related to Psychiatric Technician in different industries are
- Psychiatric Aides
- Recreational Therapists
- Physical Therapist Aides
- Physical Therapist Assistants
- Occupational Therapy Assistants
- Occupational Therapy Aides
- Acute Care Nurses
- Registered Nurses
- Paramedics
- Home Health Aides
- Emergency Medicine Physicians
- Advanced Practice Psychiatric Nurses
- Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Workers
- Mental Health Counselors
- Clinical Neuropsychologists
- Psychiatrists
- Occupational Therapists
- Clinical and Counseling Psychologists
- Healthcare Social Workers
- Clinical Nurse Specialists
What Do Psychiatric Technician do?
- Monitor patients' physical and emotional well-being and report unusual behavior or physical ailments to medical staff.
- Provide nursing, psychiatric, or personal care to mentally ill, emotionally disturbed, or mentally retarded patients.
- Observe and influence patients' behavior, communicating and interacting with them and teaching, counseling, or befriending them.
- Take and record measures of patients' physical condition, using devices such as thermometers or blood pressure gauges.
- Encourage patients to develop work skills and to participate in social, recreational, or other therapeutic activities that enhance interpersonal skills or develop social relationships.
- Collaborate with or assist doctors, psychologists, or rehabilitation therapists in working with mentally ill, emotionally disturbed, or developmentally disabled patients to treat, rehabilitate, and return patients to the community.
- Develop or teach strategies to promote client wellness and independence.
- Restrain violent, potentially violent, or suicidal patients by verbal or physical means as required.
- Aid patients in performing tasks, such as bathing or keeping beds, clothing, or living areas clean.
- Administer oral medications or hypodermic injections, following physician's prescriptions and hospital procedures.
- Issue medications from dispensary and maintain records in accordance with specified procedures.
- Interview new patients to complete admission forms, to assess their mental health status, or to obtain their mental health and treatment history.
- Lead prescribed individual or group therapy sessions as part of specific therapeutic procedures.
- Contact patients' relatives to arrange family conferences.
- Train or instruct new employees on procedures to follow with psychiatric patients.
- Escort patients to medical appointments.
Qualities of Good Psychiatric Technician
- Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
- Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
- Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
- Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
- Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
- Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
- Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
- Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
- Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
- Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
- Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
- Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
- Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
- Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
- Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
- Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
- Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
- Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
- Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
- Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
- Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
- Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
- Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
- Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
- Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
- Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
- Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
- Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
- Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
- Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
- Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
- Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
- Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
- Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
- Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
- Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
- Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
- Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
- Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
- Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
- Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
- Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
- Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
- Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
- Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
- Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
- Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
- Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
- Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
- Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
- Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
Tools Used by Psychiatric Technician
- Bag valve mask BVM resuscitators
- Blood drawing syringes
- Blood pressure cuffs
- Cold therapy equipment
- Crutches
- Desktop computers
- Electronic patient thermometers
- Emergency carts
- Enema equipment
- Evacuated blood collection tubes
- Glucometers
- Gurneys
- Hazardous material spill kits
- Heat therapy equipment
- Hospital beds
- Hypodermic syringes
- Intermittent positive pressure breathing IPPB devices
- Lancets
- Mechanical stethoscopes
- Nasogastric tubes
- Nebulizers
- Notebook computers
- Oximeters
- Oxygen administration equipment
- Oxygen carts
- Patient restraints
- Personal computers
- Safety gloves
- Suction machines
- Surgical masks
- Tablet computers
- Traction equipment
- Tuberculin TB skin test equipment
- Urinary catheters
- Wheelchairs
Technology Skills required for Psychiatric Technician
- ADL Data Systems OptimumClinicals Electronic Health Record
- Allscripts Sunrise
- Cerner ProFile
- Epic EpicCare Inpatient Clinical System
- GE Healthcare Centricity EMR
- ICANotes
- InfoLogix HealthTrax Engine
- MEDITECH Behavioral Health Clinicals
- Microsoft Excel
- Microsoft Office software
- Microsoft Outlook
- Microsoft Word
- Netsmart Technologies Avatar Clinical Workstation CWS