Podcast episode 1: How license exams are like the TSA

Psychotherapy Notes podcastAs 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.

Simply put, licensing exams don’t work. And California’s MFT Clinical Exam has been particularly problematic of late. But what do we do about them? Psychologists are adding another exam process with the EPPP-2. On the other hand, California took a positive step last year in finally allowing additional time for those who speak English as a second language.

As you’ll hear in this episode, while license exams are deeply flawed in doing what they are supposed to do — identify those who have the minimum knowledge necessary to practice independently without being a danger to the public — there’s something else they do, that we don’t often discuss. And that something else is reason enough to keep them.

Have a listen! And we welcome your feedback. You can always email us with comments and suggestions for topics you’d like to see us cover on the podcast in the future. Thanks for listening.

(You can find additional episodes on iTunes.)