Discussions about California’s “six-year rule” for associate marriage and family therapists (AMFTs), clinical counselors (APCCs), and clinical social workers (ASWs) often turn confusing. There’s a simple reason for that. When people refer to California’s “six-year rule,” they actually might be referring to either one of two different rules, both of which have six-year timeframes. Here’s a breakdown of both six-year rules.
Licensure
How did we get here? Part 2: Educational requirements
In a previous post, we discussed the required hours of supervised experience for psychotherapist licensure and the history of that requirement. In this post, we examine the ever-growing educational requirements for a master’s degree that leads to licensure as family therapist, clinical social worker, or counselor.
Podcast episode 2: Kim Madsen, California BBS, on license exams
For the opening episode of our podcast, we talked about why license exams don’t work, but we should keep them anyway. In this follow-up, we talk with Kim Madsen, the Executive Officer of the California Board of Behavioral Sciences. The BBS licenses marriage and family therapists (LMFTs), clinical social workers (LCSWs), and professional clinical counselors (LPCCs). You may be surprised at what she has to say about the license exam process.
Announcing our guide to the California Clinical Counselor Law & Ethics Exam
If you’re on your path to becoming a clinical counselor in California, you will need to take the state’s Clinical Counselor Law & Ethics Exam in your first year of registration as an Associate. I’m proud to announce the release of our new study guide for that exam.
Podcast episode 1: How license exams are like the TSA
As we announced last month, the first seven episodes of our Psychotherapy Notes podcast are now online. They’re interesting and short, by design. Much as I love to ramble on for hours (seriously, my students are all rolling their eyes and nodding in agreement right now), these episodes are short enough that you can listen to an entire episode during a 10 minute break between client sessions. For our first episode, we revisit a topic that has come up often here on the blog: License exams.