Should Semester Hour Requirements for Professional Counseling Licensure be Changed?
By: Victor V. Wiesner, Ph.D., LPC-S, NCC, CCMHC
Click here to contact Victor and/or see his GoodTherapy.org Profile
In Texas, LPCs must currently complete 48 graduate semester hours of coursework. This might change in five years or less. To be implemented in 2013, the Council for the Accreditation of Counseling and Related Education Programs (CACREP) is recommending that community counseling training programs increase the requirement for community counseling training programs from 48 hours to 60. Half of states now require 60 semester hours of training for licensure. If the CACREP changes go as expected, graduate programs in Texas will need to boost their degree requirements to become or maintain CACREP status. It is conceivable that there might someday be a gap between CACREP requirements and the Texas board. If this happens schools and students may have some tough decisions to make.
If the requirement increases by 12 semester hours it will obviously take students longer and will cost more money to attain a degree. Would this be an unreasonable hardship to many students? How consistently is 48 hours sufficient to train counselors?
Recently I was the lead researcher in a team that utilized mixed methods to examine the opinion of counselor educators in Texas on this issue. The results will be published in the Texas Counseling Journal Spring 2008 issue. This research did not query current or potential students, members of the general public, or LPCs. Surely what the state eventually decides will impact consumers of counseling, mental health practitioners (non-LPCs indirectly), students, and universities.
If additional coursework is required everyone has their own opinion of how to best put the extra hours to good use. What drives these choices may well be our own experience of what is currently missing or at least lacking at various training programs and this of course is a matter of perception informed by our past experience as well by objective knowledge of current training programs.
I would like to see all programs require a course devoted exclusively to chemical dependency. I doubt any mental health professional has not seen the damage of chemical misuse, abuse, or dependence. Another course I believe is vital is a course dedicated to psychopharmacology. Yet another course I would promote is coursework covering one specific counseling theory in greater depth. Often students spend only a few weeks formally covering what may be their guiding theory. One course will not provide the depth I believe is necessary but it would be a better start and ultimately all training programs are about starts. Additional coursework would allow for more electives. Here you can plug in your personal favorites.
Becoming a master counselor requires time. 12 more hours would translate to 3 to 6 months of development – a little more time for information and skills to “gel” before students leave the proverbial nest. Of course the same argument could be extended to require yet additional hours and this begs the question “when is enough coursework enough?”
The fact that you are reading this article means I am preaching to the choir even if you are not in favor of increasing the hour requirement. You no doubt continue to pursue active growth to become a better therapist. You attend seminars, read counseling related literature, and focus on your own self growth. I have always taken the stance that the full education of a counselor cannot wholly be done in the classroom. Post graduate internship, mentoring, professional associations, life experiences, our own counseling, and continuing education units help to round out the counselor but much of this cannot be appropriately mandated. One has to want it. The wanting is, like any training program, a good start.
©Copyright 2008 by Victor V. Wiesner. All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org. The following article was solely written and edited by the author named above. The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the following article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment to this blog entry.
Click here to contact Victor and/or see his GoodTherapy.org Profile