Top 12 Mental Health Worker Skills to Put on Your Resume

In the dynamic, deeply human field of mental health, the skills you spotlight on a resume can tip the balance. Employers scan for substance. They want proof you can hold space, think critically, act safely, and partner with clients toward meaningful change. The following skills show that breadth—compassion laced with technique, ethics braided with practical know-how.

Mental Health Worker Skills

1. Empathy
2. Active Listening
3. Crisis Intervention
4. Motivational Interviewing
5. Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
6. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
7. Trauma-Informed Care
8. Mindfulness Techniques
9. Psychiatric Medication Knowledge
10. Group Facilitation
11. Electronic Health Records (EHR)
12. Telehealth Platforms

1. Empathy

Empathy is the practiced ability to feel with someone, not just for them. In mental health work, it threads understanding through every interaction, easing defensiveness and opening doors to trust.

Why It's Important

Clients share when they feel seen. Empathy strengthens the therapeutic bond, clarifies needs, and supports care that actually fits the person in front of you.

How to Improve Empathy Skills

Build it with intention. Small, steady steps:

1. Active listening: Track words, tone, body language. Reflect what you hear. Check you got it right.

2. Self-reflection: Map your own triggers and biases. Notice the snap judgments. Slow them down.

3. Open-ended questions: Invite stories, not yes/no answers. Let clients lead with their meaning.

4. Formal practice: Workshops, role-plays, supervision—reps matter.

5. Mindfulness and self-care: Regulate yourself so you can co-regulate with clients.

Do this consistently and empathy becomes sturdier, less performative, more grounded.

How to Display Empathy Skills on Your Resume

2. Active Listening

Active listening means give full attention, hold judgment, reflect, clarify, and remember. Clients sense the difference instantly.

Why It's Important

It builds safety. It sharpens assessment. It prevents missteps and fuels collaborative planning.

How to Improve Active Listening Skills

1. Full presence: Put distractions away. Square your body. Breathe slow.

2. Signal you’re tuned in: Eye contact that fits the culture. Nods. Minimal encouragers.

3. Reflect and summarize: Paraphrase content and feeling. Short and accurate beats long and fuzzy.

4. Hold questions: Don’t interrupt the arc. Curiosity, not interrogation.

5. Respond with care: Validate, then explore. Empathy first; problem-solving later.

How to Display Active Listening Skills on Your Resume

3. Crisis Intervention

Short-term, high-impact support that stabilizes acute distress, protects life, and restores immediate coping.

Why It's Important

Moments of crisis set the trajectory. Effective intervention contains risk, reduces harm, and connects people to the next right step.

How to Improve Crisis Intervention Skills

1. Communication under pressure: Calm tone, clear choices, slow pacing. De-escalation beats argument.

2. Current training: Refresh risk assessment methods, safety planning, and de-escalation protocols regularly.

3. Structured safety checks: Lethality assessment, access to means, protective factors, supervision protocols.

4. Cultural humility: Crisis looks different across communities. Calibrate your approach.

5. Self-care and team support: After-action reviews, supervision, boundaries. Burnout fogs judgment.

6. Networked response: Build contacts with community providers, mobile teams, and local resources, including the 988 Lifeline in the U.S.

7. Tech-enabled options: When appropriate, use secure telecrisis tools and text/phone services for rapid access.

How to Display Crisis Intervention Skills on Your Resume

4. Motivational Interviewing

A collaborative, client-centered style that surfaces ambivalence and strengthens intrinsic motivation to change.

Why It's Important

MI reduces resistance, boosts engagement, and helps clients choose change that aligns with their values.

How to Improve Motivational Interviewing Skills

1. Master reflective responses: Simple, complex, double-sided reflections. Let clients hear their own change talk.

2. Ask open questions: What, how, tell me about. Keep it evocative.

3. Affirm strengths: Specific, authentic affirmations build momentum.

4. Develop discrepancy: Gently highlight the gap between values and current behavior.

5. Roll with resistance: Avoid power struggles. Reframe and refocus.

6. Keep empathy central: Accurate empathy anchors everything.

7. Deliberate practice: Record sessions (with consent), get feedback, drill skills in supervision.

How to Display Motivational Interviewing Skills on Your Resume

5. Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

A structured, goal-oriented approach that identifies unhelpful thoughts and behaviors and replaces them with more workable patterns.

Why It's Important

CBT has a strong evidence base across anxiety, depression, insomnia, and more. It’s teachable, measurable, and practical.

How to Improve Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Skills

1. Ongoing education: Keep current with protocols and disorder-specific adaptations.

2. Personalize treatment: Integrate values, identity, culture, and goals into case formulations.

3. Alliance matters: Empathy and collaboration amplify technique.

4. Use digital tools: Thought records, behavioral activation planners, sleep diaries—paper or app, just use them.

5. Homework that sticks: Clear, bite-sized tasks with troubleshooting at the next session.

6. Measurement-based care: Track symptoms and functioning; adjust plans based on data.

7. Supervision and consultation: Discuss complex cases and get feedback on fidelity.

How to Display Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Skills on Your Resume

6. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)

A CBT-derived approach blending acceptance and change. It teaches skills in mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness—often via individual therapy, group skills, and coaching.

Why It's Important

DBT reduces self-harm, improves emotion regulation, and strengthens relationships. It’s a lifeline for clients with chronic dysregulation.

How to Improve Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Skills

1. Formal training: Complete comprehensive DBT training and refreshers.

2. Consultation teams: Meet regularly for adherence support and problem-solving.

3. Live the skills: Practice mindfulness and opposite action yourself; model the work.

4. Stay current: Track emerging research and adaptations for different populations.

5. Use supportive tools: Skills handouts, diary cards, and secure apps for between-session practice.

6. Therapist sustainability: Self-care and boundaries to prevent drift and burnout.

How to Display Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Skills on Your Resume

7. Trauma-Informed Care

An approach that recognizes the prevalence and impact of trauma, prioritizes physical and emotional safety, and emphasizes collaboration, choice, and empowerment.

Why It's Important

It prevents re-traumatization and fosters trust. Services become safer, more equitable, and more effective.

How to Improve Trauma-Informed Care Skills

1. Education: Understand trauma’s neurobiology, presentations, and recovery pathways.

2. Self-awareness: Monitor countertransference and bias. Repair quickly when ruptures happen.

3. Safety first: Predictable routines, transparent processes, calming spaces.

4. Collaboration and choice: Share power. Offer options. Use shared decision-making.

5. Cultural humility: Tailor care to community context, identity, and historical trauma.

6. Feedback-informed treatment: Invite client feedback often and adapt.

How to Display Trauma-Informed Care Skills on Your Resume

8. Mindfulness Techniques

Present-moment awareness, nonjudgmental and steady. Practices include breathwork, brief meditations, body scans, and grounding exercises.

Why It's Important

It lowers stress reactivity, sharpens attention, and supports emotion regulation—for you and your clients.

How to Improve Mindfulness Techniques Skills

1. Daily reps: Short practices, often. Consistency beats intensity.

2. Learn the science: Know what mindfulness changes and what it doesn’t.

3. Mindful listening: Bring full presence into sessions; notice urges to fix or rush.

4. Workshops and trainings: Expand your toolbox (MBSR, MBCT, brief interventions).

5. Use it under stress: Apply techniques during tough sessions to model regulation.

6. Integrate ethically: Match practices to client preferences, culture, and readiness.

7. Leverage simple tech: Timers, guided audios, or apps for structure—optional, not required.

8. Reflect: Note what lands, what doesn’t, and refine.

How to Display Mindfulness Techniques Skills on Your Resume

9. Psychiatric Medication Knowledge

Working knowledge of indications, mechanisms, common side effects, serious risks, interactions, and monitoring needs. Awareness of scope of practice and when to consult or refer.

Why It's Important

It improves safety monitoring, adherence support, and coordination with prescribers—leading to better outcomes and fewer surprises.

How to Improve Psychiatric Medication Knowledge Skills

1. Continuing education: Target psychopharmacology courses relevant to your role and population.

2. Read widely: Summaries, guidelines, and journals for up-to-date evidence.

3. Case consultation: Discuss polypharmacy, adverse events, and special populations with prescribers.

4. Safety literacy: Black box warnings, lab monitoring, pregnancy considerations, interactions (including OTC and herbal).

5. Client-friendly education: Plain-language explanations, side effect tracking, shared decision-making.

How to Display Psychiatric Medication Knowledge Skills on Your Resume

10. Group Facilitation

Guiding therapeutic groups so members feel safe, heard, and involved—while keeping structure, goals, and process in balance.

Why It's Important

Groups multiply healing. Good facilitation boosts cohesion, skill practice, and peer support.

How to Improve Group Facilitation Skills

1. Plan with purpose: Clear goals, flow, time checks, and backup activities.

2. Set the frame: Agreements, confidentiality limits, inclusive norms.

3. Invite voices: Techniques that draw out quiet members without spotlighting them.

4. Listen deeply: Track themes, reflect patterns, validate emotion.

5. Manage conflict: Name tension, slow it down, and redirect toward shared goals.

6. Attend to equity: Monitor dynamics, power, and access; adjust facilitation accordingly.

7. Get feedback: Quick check-ins and end-of-cycle surveys to refine.

How to Display Group Facilitation Skills on Your Resume

11. Electronic Health Records (EHR) - Specific technologies might include Epic, Cerner, or NextGen.

Digital charts that centralize histories, diagnoses, meds, notes, care plans, and outcomes. For mental health teams, EHRs coordinate care, track progress, and support measurement-based practice.

Why It's Important

Clean documentation and accessible information drive continuity, safety, and team alignment. Fewer handoff errors, tighter care loops.

How to Improve Electronic Health Records (EHR) - Specific technologies might include Epic, Cerner, or NextGen. Skills

Epic

Customization and training: Configure mental health workflows, smart phrases, and templates. Train staff to proficiency, not just familiarity.

Cerner

Integrated behavioral health modules: Use templates and care plans designed for therapy, groups, and collaborative care.

NextGen

Behavioral health suite: Implement specialty content, outcome tracking, e-prescribing, and secure client engagement tools.

General Strategies for All EHRs

• Interoperability: Enable data exchange (e.g., HL7 FHIR) so information follows the client.

• Mobile access: Secure on-the-go charting for field work and telehealth.

• Data security: HIPAA compliance, role-based access, multi-factor authentication, and timely updates.

• Quality dashboards: Surface symptom measures, no-show rates, and outcomes for continuous improvement.

How to Display Electronic Health Records (EHR) - Specific technologies might include Epic, Cerner, or NextGen. Skills on Your Resume

12. Telehealth Platforms - Examples include Zoom, Doxy.me, or SimplePractice.

Secure video, messaging, scheduling, and documentation tools that bring care to clients wherever they are.

Why It's Important

It expands access, reduces barriers, and keeps care continuous when in-person isn’t possible.

How to Improve Telehealth Platforms - Examples include Zoom, Doxy.me, or SimplePractice. Skills

1. Privacy and compliance: Use HIPAA-compliant setups with business associate agreements. Enable strong encryption and waiting rooms.

2. Frictionless UX: Clear links, simple onboarding, seamless scheduling, easy document sharing.

3. EHR integration: Sync notes, billing, forms, and outcomes into one workflow.

4. Training and support: Quick guides for clients and staff; backup plans for tech hiccups.

5. Accessibility: Captioning, screen-reader compatibility, adjustable text, language access.

6. Mobile readiness: Solid iOS and Android performance for clients on limited bandwidth.

7. Contingency planning: Phone fallback, safety protocols, and verified locations for crisis escalation.

How to Display Telehealth Platforms - Examples include Zoom, Doxy.me, or SimplePractice. Skills on Your Resume