What education needed to be therapist?

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-05-2004
What education needed to be therapist?
2
Wed, 08-04-2004 - 4:09pm

Hi all, I was just curious to know, exactly what kind of education is required in order to become a counselor or a therapist?

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-18-2003
Wed, 08-04-2004 - 4:16pm
best person to ask is Cal70 her name is MariaC she is in school to become a therapist

you can eather write her a post or go thru her profile I am sure she will however see your post and respond..

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-09-2003
Thu, 08-05-2004 - 7:57pm
To be a therapist you need to have a bachelor's degree with a substantial amount of coursework in psychology, and a master's degree in counseling psychology. The master's program is a full time program of two years, plus about 700 hours of actually counseling clients under the supervision of a licensed therapist.

Some states, like California, require a lot more counseling internship hours to get licensing, plus passing a very difficult licensing exam. There is a low percentage of people who pass the first time they take it, kind of like the legal bar exam. Then licensed counselors must take continuing education classes every year to keep their license. In California, we need to have a total of 3000 supervised counseling hours before we can become licensed Marriage Family Therapists, known as licensed MFT. This position used to be called a licensed MFCC.

If you go to a psychologist, the person will have a lot more schooling and more internship hours. Most PhD programs are anywhere from 3-6 years of post college schooling. In California, someone who has earned this degree still has to do about 6,000 hours of supervised counseling hours before they can get a license. However, they may be able to get paid for most of that work. They just get paid much less than a licensed therapist or psychologist. Their supervisor gets most of the money.

Psychiatrists are medical doctors. They have been through medical school, their residency (which I think is two years), and a special one year residency in psychiatry.

I hope that answers your question. I have four more classes to take for my masters. Then I will have to do the 700 hours of supervised counseling for no payment. Then I'll have my masters degree. But I will still need to another 2300 hours of supervised counseling, study for the licensing exam and pass it before I will be a licensed therapist. I've been in my masters program for 2 years already.

Take Care,

Maria