One of the common questions we get at Family Roots Therapy is about the difference between our providers’ titles. What does a Licensed Professional Counselor mean as opposed to a Professional Counselor Associate or a student intern? What are all of those letters after providers’ names (LMFT, LPC, LCSW)?
We want to break it down for you and make it easier to understand.
Licensed Providers
There are three types of professional licenses that a therapist, counselor, or clinical social worker can have in Oregon:
● Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC)
● Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and
● Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW)
All three of these licenses require a very similar level of education and training (a Master’s degree and at least 1900 hours of direct clinical experience with clients). The differences have to do with the type of training received.
A Marriage and Family Therapist must complete a certain number of their hours specifically doing relational work (couples or family therapy). A social worker often has more experience and training in helping clients navigate systems and resources on a broader scale in addition to clinical work.
Associates
Clinicians who have completed their Master’s degree, but are still completing their hours toward licensure are required to have their work supervised by an approved supervisor who is a licensed provider. These pre-licensed providers are referred to as “associates”. At Family Roots, we have Professional Counselor Associates, Marriage and Family Therapist Associates, and Clinical Social Work Associates (CSWA).
Gaining the hours toward licensure takes between 2-5 years, with the minimum requirement being two years. All of our associates receive significant supervision and support, beyond the minimum amount required by the state board, so that we can ensure that they are providing high quality care to our clients.
Student Interns
Student interns are students who are in their final year of their master’s degree program. This means that they have completed most of their course work and in most cases have already seen some clients in a practicum setting through their school. Our student interns receive a lot of support and regularly work with their supervisors to improve their skills. Student interns are at Family Roots for a limited period of time, typically between 9-12 months (occasionally up to 15 months as a maximum). Some of our student interns have been hired to work as associates at Family Roots after graduation and continue to see their clients here, but this isn’t always the case.
You can choose which license type and level of experience you want to work with. There are benefits to each. We have found that students and associates are often coming in with the most up-to-date knowledge and with a lot of enthusiasm for their work. More experienced providers often have had time to develop more of a specialty. However, years of experience should not be the only indicator of the quality of therapy – the most important factor is that they are a good fit for your particular needs and that you are able to develop a strong relationship with your therapist.