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.
licensing
Some helpful reminders of who your friends are (and are not)
Therapists, as a group, are pretty friendly people. We entered into a helping profession, one that relies on our ability to connect with a wide range of people. Generally speaking, we try to assume the best of others, whether friends or strangers. We go to great lengths to avoid jumping to negative conclusions. These are all great traits, and useful in the therapy room.
These same traits can also leave therapists and counselors vulnerable, though. Our desire to be on good terms with those around us can make it difficult when their behavior doesn’t line up with what we want or need. We’re trained and skilled at reducing conflict, so we’re typically not eager to jump into it (or create it).
Often, the frustrating things that other people and organizations do to therapists aren’t personal. They result from those other people and organizations doing exactly what they are supposed to do. They aren’t your friends, and they aren’t supposed to be. Understanding that can make it a lot easier and less stressful to deal with them.
MFT license portability
![By Mk2010 (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://i0.wp.com/www.psychotherapynotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/256px-Cloth_Suitcase-200x300.jpg?resize=300%2C450)
Ah, to be a medical doctor. To only have to pass the boards once, and then be done with it. MFT license portability isn’t so easy.
Marriage and family therapists — who, at least in theory, practice the same profession no matter where they roam — are subject to a mishmash of licensure laws around the 50 states, with similar-but-different requirements for education, experience, and examinations. Taking your MFT license to a new state can be a challenge, as you may be forced to provide transcripts and even syllabi from classes taken decades ago, register as an intern or associate even if you’ve been fully licensed, and in some states, go through another testing process.
Four myths about clinical social work licensing exams
If you’re in the process of preparing for social work 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 clinical social work 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.
Studying for MFT licensing exams
If you are soon to be taking your state’s MFT licensing exams, congratulations! Here are five tips on how to study and prepare.
[Ed. note: This post initially published October 27, 2010. Updated in November 2016 to update the list of companies offering test prep products and services.]
Licensing exams are a major milestone in the professional development of a marriage and family therapist (MFT). While there are differences from state to state, every state except California uses the National MFT Exam, and most states require that exams be taken at the completion of at least two years of full-time, post-masters experience in supervised practice. (California uses exclusively its own exams.) As you approach completion of the supervised experience necessary to take the exams, how can you best prepare? Here are five things that can help: