Santa Barbara’s Community Counseling and Engagement Center is a popular and well-respected training site for prelicensed therapists. And they’re doing something I’ve never heard of any community agency doing: They charge prospective volunteers just to apply to work there.
Professional Counseling
Decoding counselor alphabet soup: LPC, LPCC, LMHC, and more
Around the US, most mental health professions have the same titles. A Psychologist in New York is likely to be pretty much the same, in terms of what they do, as a Psychologist in California, Montana, or anywhere else. Same for Licensed Clinical Social Workers (LCSWs) and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists (LMFTs). In other words, you can recognize the job by its title. If you’re a counselor, on the other hand, you may have any one of several different titles.
Making side income as a graduate student
When you decide to become a therapist, it is important to consider your finances. You need a plan for how to make ends meet. Ben made the point in Saving Psychotherapy that our field is mostly comprised of wealthy people, in part because those are the people who can afford to take on the financial burden of grad school and the years of low income while working toward licensure. One of the main reasons people drop out of our field before licensure is that same financial burden.
Some of us are fortunate to be able to lower our cost of living by moving back in with family or having a spouse’s support to draw from. The rest of us aren’t so lucky. We need side income to make it through to graduation.
Basics of California Law for LMFTs, LPCCs, and LCSWs – 6th ed (2019) available now
So, uh, yeah, it’s pretty much all in the headline! We’ve updated our essential guide to California law for master’s-level mental health professionals. Basics of California Law for LMFTs, LPCCs, and LCSWs (6th edition) is now available on Amazon and at our site. Here’s a rundown of what’s new, with a discount link at the end of this post.
It’s worth pointing out here that, unlike the fifth edition, this sixth edition isn’t what we would call a major update. While there are several new laws we included in this edition, the main legal changes taking effect in 2019 are around supervision — more on that below.
Get notified if your supervisor’s license status changes
Here’s a quick and easy lifehack for California mental health professionals working under supervision: Get automatic email notifications if your supervisor’s license lapses or changes status.
This has been available for a few years, and I’m surprised how few people seem to know about it. If a supervisor’s license lapses, any hours you gain while that license isn’t active will not count toward your own licensure. Unfortunately, I’ve known several folks who lost hours for precisely this reason. It’s imperative — and really easy! — to make sure your supervisor’s license remains current and active while you’re under their supervision.