Four myths about counselor licensing exams

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Ryan McGuire / Gratisography - licensed under Creative Commons ZeroIf you’re in the process of preparing for counselor licensing exams, you may be dreading them. Those fears may be based on what you’ve heard about the exams — and what you’ve heard may not be true.

I hear complaints about counselor licensing exams on a regular basis. Some of the complaints have merit, but most are based on mythology. It’s as if we (quite understandably) have anxiety-based associations with our testing process, past or future, and then conjure up rational-sounding but factually baseless complaints about the process in an attempt to justify those fears.

Every person who becomes a licensed professional counselor has to go through an examination process. While different states organize the process differently, common counselor licensing exams include the National Clinical Mental Health Counseling Exam (NCMHCE) or the National Counselor Examination for Licensure and Certification (NCE). Many states also supplement their national exam with a separate exam covering areas of state law (for example, state-based requirements for child abuse reporting).

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You’re the Worst: The other show therapists should be watching

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Petr Kratochvil / PublicDomainPictures.net / Licensed under Creative Commons ZeroMental health groups have been paying a lot of attention to Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why. The show depicts a teenager’s suicide and the tapes she left explaining her actions. Counselors and therapists have expressed concern that it will inspire copycats. But there’s another show that mental health professionals should be attending to, not out of concern but because it depicts mental illness and therapy so well: You’re the Worst.

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What single-payer health care would mean for California therapists

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California flagThe Healthy California Act — California’s single-payer bill — continues to make progress through the state legislature. If signed into law, it would make California the first state to have a statewide single-payer health care system, even as the federal Affordable Care Act may be scaled back. How would single-payer health care impact therapists, counselors, and related mental health providers?

Here, I’ll do a quick review of what we know so far. It’s broken down into three questions providers rightly ask about the bill: How would it impact my client load? How would it impact my rates? And, How would it impact how I run my practice?

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New Mexico, Nevada, Connecticut ban conversion therapy for minors

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Ryan McGuire - Licensed under Creative Commons ZeroEarlier this month, the governors of Nevada and Connecticut signed laws banning conversion therapy for minors in those states. These follow the signing of a similar law in New Mexico in April. According to the National Center for Lesbian Rights, nine states now ban the practice. The District of Columbia and cities including Seattle, Cincinnati, and several in Florida have enacted similar bans.

If you are not familiar with the practice, conversion therapy (also sometimes known as reparative therapy) involves efforts to change someone’s sexual orientation. The American Psychological Association and other professional mental health groups have strongly disavowed the practice. They note that there is no evidence that the treatment is generally effective, but there is evidence of harm that it can cause.

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