A Texas Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) must complete 30 clock hours of continuing education relevant to Marriage and Family Therapy each renewal period.
A Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Associate (LMFT Associate) must complete 15 clock hours of continuing education each renewal period. Hours may not be carried over from one renewal period to the next renewal period.
Each licensee is responsible for maintaining documentation of his or her completed continuing education hours. Each licensee will report continuing education hours at the time of renewal.
Continuing education undertaken by a licensee shall be acceptable to the board under two circumstances:
- if it is offered by a board-approved sponsor.
- if it is provided by a board-approved provider of continuing education by the Texas State Board of Examiners of Professional Counselors, the Texas State Board of Social Worker Examiners, or the Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychologists, and it is relevant to the practice of marriage and family therapy.
Of the total Clock hours:
- at least 6 hours must be in professional ethics (completion of the jurisprudence exam may count for 1 hour of ethics)
- at least 3 hours must be in clinical supervision education, if the licensee is a board-approved supervisor.
- no more than 12 hours every renewal period through completion of correspondence courses, satellite or distance learning, audio/video courses, and/or other learning formats of self study.
Professional Development Resources is approved by the American Psychological Association (APA) to sponsor continuing education for psychologists; the National Board of Certified Counselors (NBCC ACEP #5590); the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB Provider #1046, ACE Program); the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA Provider #3159); the Commission on Dietetic Registration (CDR Provider #PR001); the Texas Board of Examiners of Marriage & Family Therapists (#114) and State Board of Social Worker Examiners (#5678).Information obtained from the Texas State Board of Examiners of Marriage and Family Therapists on April 15, 2015.
Continuing Education Courses for Marriage and Family Therapists:
From Contention to Contemplation: Overcoming Core Impasses in Couples Therapy is a 1-hour online video CE course. Many couples come to therapy emotionally disconnected from each other, polarized by a constant state of struggle and unable to see past the last fight. Couples often engage in a repetitive cycle of interaction, resulting in their feeling stuck and hopeless. Once this reciprocal pattern can be identified, couples can be empowered to break the pattern and learn new ways of relating to one another that better satisfies their needs. The purpose of this course is to train therapists to conduct a strength-based assessment and identify those dynamics in a couple’s interaction that serve to perpetuate unsatisfactory relationship patterns. Therapeutic techniques discussed include diagramming a couple’s vulnerability cycle using pictorial representations and facilitating new patterns by identifying the partners’ beliefs and core premises and providing training in retroactive analysis of conflictual interactions.
Couples No-Fault Counseling is a 3-hour online CE course. Couples counseling is a challenging undertaking for both counselors and couples. Counselors need to take a detailed history of both partners and gradually discover the real reasons they overreact to certain things their partner says and does. Couples need to be motivated enough to keep counseling appointments and need to believe that they can improve their relationship. This course will share four interesting case studies, where you will witness couples who came to therapy for an identified problem and left with a much greater understanding of the underlying causes of their difficulties. The studies clearly reveal the reasons the partners were attracted to each other, and what they can learn from one another began in their childhoods. After taking this course, you will know how to help couples to give up their BAD (blame, argue & defend) communication style and replace it with active listening. In doing so, you will help them to create more harmonious relationships by increasing the empathy they feel for each other. By helping a couple who has children, you are making a positive difference in the couple’s lives, in the lives of their offspring and in the lives of countless unborn generations. The Couples No Fault Workbook, with twelve exercises to help couples begin their journey into greater self-awareness, is included at the end of this course.
The Challenge of Co-Parenting: Helping Split Couples to Raise Healthy Kids is a 2-hour online CE course. Parents who have chosen not to remain together as a couple are still responsible for the healthy upbringing of their mutual children. They must face not only the typical challenges of parenting, but also those unique tasks that come from living in separate homes. While therapists and other professionals have long worked with intact couples on parenting skills, they must now also be versed in teaching parents who live in separate homes how to establish healthy “co-parenting” abilities as well. This course will provide a basic understanding of the significant issues unique to children of split couples, and how to help co-parents address these issues while at the same time overcoming the common blocks that prevent them from working together in a healthy way.
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