To work as a counseling practitioner, a master's degree is sufficient. State and national certification exams are based on the material covered in the course of a master's degree. After completing a licensing exam, you can work in an entry-level position as a counselor or a social worker. However, if you aspire to work more independently as a supervisor, researcher or professor, you will probably need a PhD.
Most master's programs require 48 semester hours, which can be completed in about two years if you're attending school full-time or three to five years if you're going part-time. A PhD will require closer to 96 hours and an additional three to six years of schooling. Much of the additional time will be spent doing research. PhD students also take oral or written preliminary exams and produce dissertations based on their original work.
While a master's degree is general enough that you don't have to have a specialty, students in PhD programs must chose to concentrate on one specific type of psychology, such as clinical, social, educational, cognitive or counseling. Even within counseling, there are many subspecialties, such as counselor education, counseling psychology and clinical psychology. If you don't have a good idea yet of what you want to specialize in, a master's degree is the better route.
Although it takes much longer to complete a PhD than a master's degree, employment prospects are better for graduates with a PhD. A PhD student can strengthen his or her qualifications by gaining experience in an applied field of psychology, such as health, counseling or school psychology. Counseling jobs will be competitive among master's-degree holders, although graduates might also look for employment in industrial-organizational psychology.