California’s licensing exam restructure for marriage and family therapists (MFTs) takes effect January 1, 2016. Here’s how the new exam process will affect you.
Licensure
Changes to California MFT intern hours: An (updated) explainer
In September 2015, Governor Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 620, a Board of Behavioral Sciences-sponsored bill that will change how MFT intern hours are counted toward licensure. What is the new law, and why is it happening? This explainer is meant to answer the most common questions about the changes. (Ed. note: This was originally posted in November 2014 when the changes were just a proposal. It’s been updated in October 2015 to reflect the law as adopted.)
Licensing exams get a failing grade
Note: The following is an edited excerpt from Saving Psychotherapy: How therapists can bring the talking cure back from the brink. You can buy it on Amazon.
Licensing exams do not assess your effectiveness as a therapist. They aren’t meant to. That bears repeating: License exams do not assess your effectiveness as a therapist. They are a licensing board’s best effort at assessing whether you have the minimal knowledge (not skill, knowledge) to be able to practice independently without being a danger to the public. That’s all. When therapists decry the fact that license exams are nothing like doing therapy, they’re right – and their point isn’t relevant. Exams aren’t supposed to be like therapy. If you want to know how good you are as a therapist, look elsewhere, because exams are not and are not intended to be a barometer of clinical effectiveness. They are a somewhat crude assessment of safety for independent practice.
With that aim in mind, do they work? Do licensing exams make therapists safer?
There’s remarkably little data to answer that question.
The first interstate compact for counselor license reciprocity
I’ve talked a fair amount in this blog about the need for better license portability across states. True license reciprocity, where one state automatically recognizes another state’s licensure, is rightly the long-term goal of some professional associations in mental health. (I’ve argued that telehealth will help us get there.)
Counselor and therapist licensure: Does testing raise quality?
Whenever I get into conversations about the licensing process, a number of the same questions keep coming up. Many of these questions revolve around the value of having a license exam. It’s perhaps the most pesky, the-answer-should-be-obvious-but-isn’t question: Do licensure examinations make for better therapists?