The four biggest MFT Progress Notes posts of 2013

Ranked by page views.

2013 was a big year here on the blog. I’ve crossed 250K pageviews, which is certainly humbling, and broke my monthly traffic record multiple times. Here are the four posts that drew the most eyeballs in 2013, counting down to the top:

4) Prologue. To be honest, the continued interest in this has surprised me. It’s a poem for new students in family therapy (though it certainly can be applied to other mental health fields as well), summarizing what I often wish I had said to students I’ve had in years past.


3) California MFT program rankings: The best license exam preparation. As I make the case for in the full book, license exam performance is one of the few areas where you really can objectively compare the performance of alumni from various graduate programs. There are some problems with doing so (after all, we don’t all admit the same students), but it’s still compelling data. Want to see whose graduates do best among the state’s bigger programs? The top program is revealed here.

2) The difference between an LMFT, an LCSW, and an LPC (or LPCC). This was originally posted in October 2012, but continues to get a lot of readership. Counselors (LPCCs here in California) have rightly criticized me for framing their work too narrowly, a problem I plan to correct in the next edition of my California Law book for MFTs, LPCCs, and LCSWs. But if you want a quick summary of what makes the professions different, it’s in this post.

And at the top of the traffic list for the year? Mental drumroll…

1) The best MFT graduate programs. This post, originally put up in 2008 and regularly updated since, has spawned several others and, now, a book with data on 34 of California’s biggest programs. Neither I nor anyone else can tell you which program will be best for you (that’s a decision you need to make based on what’s most important to you personally), but if you’re struggling to decide, this post may help you at least sort out what to pay the most attention to.

I have a lot already in the works for 2014, including a long-overdue facelift for the blog and some cool new ways to navigate. If there’s something you would love to see me cover here, please feel free to say so! Many of the blog’s best and most popular posts were born from reader suggestions, classroom discussions, and talks with colleagues. It’s meant to be a conversation, here, not a lecture. I’d love to hear your thoughts. And as always, my thanks to you for reading.

Happy New Year!