In this episode of Finding Your Balance, Tiffani Fritzsche and Kirk Fasshauer pull back the curtain on the journey to becoming a therapist. From choosing a degree path and gaining hands-on experience to navigating internships, supervision, licensure, and lifelong learning, they share their personal stories and professional insights about building a career in mental health.

Whether you're a student exploring career options, considering a change in profession, or simply curious about what it takes to become a counselor, social worker, or therapist, this episode offers encouragement, practical guidance, and a behind-the-scenes look at the people who dedicate their lives to helping others find balance.

00:00 Tiffani

Welcome to Finding Your Balance, a mental health podcast. My name is Tiffani Fritzsche. I'm a

00:05 Tiffani

licensed mental health counselor, and I'm joined here with my friend Kirk Fassauer, a licensed

00:09 Tiffani

clinical social worker. Hello. And today we have somewhat of a different topic. We are going to be

00:13 Tiffani

talking about the pathways to becoming a counselor. Great.

00:19 Kirk

You know, we talk about there are different pathways to becoming a therapist, quite frankly. You

00:25 Kirk

know, you're a licensed mental health. and I'm a licensed clinical social worker.

00:30 Kirk

I know for me,

00:34 Kirk

my undergrad is in psychology. My master's degree is in social work.

00:39 Kirk

And originally, I didn't want to be in social work at all. Really? Yeah. No, it was during my

00:45 Kirk

undergrad that I got a job working in an inpatient.

00:53 Kirk

residential inpatient that worked with the 14 most dangerous male adolescents in the Commonwealth

00:58 Kirk

of Massachusetts. So during that period, I learned about the different therapies and things like

01:05 Kirk

this along with my education.

01:09 Kirk

So I connected with people who did this and really made a good connection with somebody who was my

01:14 Kirk

mentor. He was a family therapist. That's why I ended up with my master's focusing on family

01:19 Kirk

therapy. But he suggested, after he and I had several conversations about careers and things like

01:27 Kirk

this, he's the one that suggested social work. And I looked at him, I said, social work.

01:32 Kirk

Because in my mind at the time, and what most people think of social work, It's more the child

01:37 Kirk

welfare end of things. I did not want to touch that with a 10-foot pole.

01:43 Kirk

I didn't want to be involved in that. So when he suggested it,

01:48 Kirk

I was kind of surprised. But then he explained to me that, you know, you've got, A, a systems

01:54 Kirk

thinking perspective, okay? So systems theories look at a whole process.

02:01 Kirk

And it's not just the focus on the individual, but the environment within which the person is,

02:07 Kirk

which is the focus of clinical social work is the person in environment as opposed to the inner

02:15 Kirk

person. So you do some of the inner person, but the outer experience is just as important.

02:25 Kirk

He also said it was a much more marketable degree and social work has this huge lobby and things

02:32 Kirk

like this to get on insurance panels and things like this. And it's a much different kind of

02:38 Kirk

marketable degree. So I ended up, when we moved on from Massachusetts and moved into New Jersey for

02:48 Kirk

a while, that's when I got back and... got another job,

02:54 Kirk

working outreach primarily, and then started looking at schools, and Rutgers University was highly

03:00 Kirk

recommended for social work. Ended up going there and working on my clinical focus there because

03:09 Kirk

there's different focuses with social work. You can do an administrative track. You can do the

03:14 Kirk

medical track. You can do school if you want to do school. Counseling. And there is,

03:20 Kirk

of course, the child welfare track as well. And then there's the clinical track, and I chose the

03:25 Kirk

clinical. I did some of the administrative stuff too, but clinical was my main love and passion.

03:32 Kirk

And my big focus being family therapy because of the influences. So that was kind of my journey.

03:40 Kirk

Also, several years in between because I got my undergrad and then I... worked in the field close

03:47 Kirk

to, by the time I went to get my master's degree, I was seven years already in the field.

03:52 Kirk

Really? Yeah. So I had a wealth of experience going into class and I was like, oh,

03:57 Kirk

master's. And I'm thinking, oh, the classes are going to be hard and they're really challenging.

04:04 Kirk

And then I did a few classes as a non-matriculated student.

04:09 Kirk

So I went to my first non-matriculated class. And I remember the moment I was like,

04:16 Kirk

what am I so worried about? This is nothing. Yeah, because you had the background. Right.

04:22 Kirk

I had the background going in there, and it's like, oh, I'm learning the theory. It was

04:26 Kirk

interesting. I had some conversations with my professors. They kind of knew because of the way I

04:32 Kirk

asked questions and the way I would respond to certain things in the answer to their questions.

04:36 Kirk

They kind of knew I had been working in the field for a while. So it was interesting. More of a

04:41 Kirk

dialogue back and forth. And it was interesting fellow students, grad students,

04:47 Kirk

some of them coming right out of school, but their undergrad going right into master's. They didn't

04:52 Kirk

have the field experience. They had all the book knowledge.

04:57 Kirk

That was fresh. What was the experience like for you from you? So very different. Yeah. So my

05:03 Tiffani

undergrad degree was in community relations and journalism or public relations and journalism.

05:10 Tiffani

Not clinical at all. In fact, quite the opposite. However, there's so many transferable skills

05:16 Tiffani

because public relations and journalism, a lot of it is how do you read a room?

05:22 Tiffani

How do you assess what people are hoping to obtain? Reading people and really just connecting with

05:30 Tiffani

them because in order to get a story, in order to... get someone to talk to you, you have to be

05:35 Tiffani

trustworthy and you have to create a safe space. So a lot of transferable skills just in a

05:40 Tiffani

different way. And I I didn't know that I wanted to go into counseling at first.

05:46 Tiffani

We had growing up several personal tragedies. And I will say in that in that time,

05:53 Tiffani

there wasn't a lot of mental health support in. In that area, none was ever recommended.

06:00 Tiffani

It just wasn't a thing. People didn't really talk about family counseling or supporter therapy in

06:06 Tiffani

the world where I lived at that time. And so, you know, I did the work and I got the support that I

06:12 Tiffani

needed. And I always thought back in that time, man. I wish that someone had come to me and asked

06:20 Tiffani

this, or if only someone had asked this question to my family,

06:25 Tiffani

maybe this would have helped, you know, kind of looking back. Right. And then I kind of put that in

06:30 Tiffani

the back of my mind and went on with my life. And so I went to college. I got my, my

06:35 Tiffani

undergraduate degree in public relations and journalism. And then. I tried to get a job in that

06:40 Tiffani

world, but that's when all of the newspapers were really going digital. So not perfect timing.

06:47 Tiffani

And then I got an opportunity to get a job on campus at a local university working in the tutoring

06:54 Tiffani

center. And that, again, brought me back into the world of people, you know,

06:59 Tiffani

getting to know them. I spent some time doing retail, just different, you know, jobs. And I learned

07:04 Tiffani

a lot about working with different people. And I learned a lot about expectations and about how do

07:10 Tiffani

you manage when there's a conflict, when people are upset around you? How do you de-escalate? All

07:15 Tiffani

those transferable skills, but not in mental health. And then I was able to go to graduate school.

07:22 Tiffani

That opportunity kind of came up out of nowhere.

07:26 Tiffani

Years ago, the dream that I had had of, man, I wish somebody had asked this question or I wish this

07:32 Tiffani

resource had been available, it kind of came in front of me as, what about if you could be that

07:37 Tiffani

person for somebody? And so that's what propelled me to apply for a professional counseling

07:43 Tiffani

graduate program. And it was so interesting because I had forgotten all those things. And then once

07:48 Tiffani

I started the program, I'm like, oh, yeah. It brought me full circle.

07:54 Tiffani

And so I got my master's in professional counseling. And then I went back after I graduated.

08:00 Tiffani

had a certification in marriage and family therapy. So we kind of ended up in similar areas,

08:05 Tiffani

right? Family, but in very different ways. When I started the graduate program, I had no clinical

08:11 Tiffani

experience. I had never had a job in that field like you did. I did have a lot of experience,

08:17 Tiffani

you know, being a camp counselor or volunteering or, you know, mentoring kids after school,

08:22 Tiffani

things like that, but nothing so formal. And then... part of the graduate program was getting an

08:29 Tiffani

internship. And that was my first real clinical experience. And actually,

08:34 Tiffani

a lot of my intern hours, I did under one of your programs. Oh, that's right.

08:40 Tiffani

And that's how we met. And I will say that was one of my best experiences because…

08:46 Tiffani

It gave me the opportunity to jump into community mental health while having the safety of the

08:52 Tiffani

people around me to keep me going in the right directions. And honestly, I couldn't have asked for

08:58 Tiffani

a better experience. After I graduated, my track was maybe different than yours.

09:04 Tiffani

You know, to pursue an LMHC, not only do you have to graduate with an appropriate degree.

09:09 Tiffani

And LMHCs, I think that the degree path is a little bit different. There's a little more

09:13 Tiffani

flexibility in the degrees that we can get. For clinical social work, they're pretty strict. And so

09:18 Tiffani

for mental health counseling, you know, you can go look on the Florida Board's website to see which

09:23 Tiffani

degrees are appropriate. But for me, I had a master's in professional counseling. That was fine.

09:27 Tiffani

And then I had to get connected to a qualified supervisor. And so after graduating,

09:34 Tiffani

I spent the next two years obtaining clinical hours while also under the supervision of a

09:40 Tiffani

qualified supervisor, we would meet weekly. And I would bring her the information that I had been

09:46 Tiffani

going over with my cases, like, this is really hard. I'm dealing with this. Guide me. And so she

09:51 Tiffani

guided me for two years as I would bring clinical dilemmas to her, but also ethical dilemmas,

09:57 Tiffani

also just the ins and outs of what does it mean to be a therapist? How do I manage family and life

10:02 Tiffani

and stress and boundaries? And so for two years, I received qualified supervision.

10:08 Tiffani

And then I took my test and I passed the test. I finished my hours. You put everything in the mail

10:14 Tiffani

and then they give you a license number. And then you wait. Yeah, you wait forever.

10:20 Tiffani

And then you're official. And I will say, once you get that license number, there's something that

10:26 Tiffani

happens where you're like, all right. I guess I'm official now. Right. But then there's the panic

10:31 Tiffani

of like, oh, gosh, I'm official now. Right. Because I mean, working with people, I think that you

10:37 Tiffani

don't know what you don't know. And I think the sign of a true clinician is knowing that there's

10:42 Tiffani

wisdom in a council of people. So even though that qualified supervision is over, I continue to

10:47 Tiffani

surround myself with people I trust that as things come down the road. I have a council of trusted

10:54 Tiffani

people that I can lean on for that advice because you never know everything. Correct. Correct. You

10:59 Kirk

can't. You can't know everything. Was your pathway a little bit different for licensure? Well, I

11:03 Kirk

want to go back to something you said. You started off with journalism. Actually, I did not start

11:08 Kirk

off thinking, oh, psychology is the way I wanted to go. I started off in computer science. Oh,

11:13 Kirk

that's right. So my. original undergrad degree was in computer science.

11:19 Kirk

And for two years, actually a little more than two years, because I had an opportunity in high

11:25 Kirk

school, senior year, to start college courses in my chosen major at the time,

11:35 Kirk

which I was heavy into computer science back then. And so I... I took two,

11:42 Kirk

I want to say two, courses in computer science while still learning my high school diploma.

11:47 Kirk

Wow. So I had college-level courses and this. Now they have those on a regular basis.

11:55 Kirk

Back then it wasn't a regular thing. It was something new they were trying, the combined high

12:01 Kirk

school, college, the collegiate level kind of thing.

12:07 Kirk

But then. When I got into school, you get your own freedoms and things like this the first couple

12:13 Kirk

of semesters. I really did not know computer science. I enjoyed it.

12:19 Kirk

I tinkered with it quite a bit. It was going to be my focus somewhere along the way. I just did not

12:25 Kirk

find joy in it as much. I found more joy in being with people and connecting with people,

12:31 Kirk

and that's what drew me to psychology and took off from there.

12:36 Kirk

undergraduate years were a little bit extended because of that. Once I hit the ground running with

12:44 Kirk

psychology, it just started to really make sense. And it seemed to be a really good fit. And like

12:51 Kirk

you said, there's an internship that happens in undergrad. That's where I got my job,

12:56 Kirk

actually. So I went to a coffee to connect for an internship. And what ended up happening was I

13:03 Kirk

ended up getting a job because rather than getting an internship, I got a job. Nice. Which was

13:08 Kirk

exciting and scary at the same time. So I started off as a psych tech on a unit,

13:15 Kirk

the unit I talked about. And so I did that for a while. I remember. Sharing with friends,

13:22 Kirk

hey, I got this job. They're looking for people and want to come join us. And actually, that was

13:26 Kirk

eye-opening for a lot of folks who were in the field and were very focused on doing counseling and

13:32 Kirk

stuff like that. They ended up changing their major because of the experience they had on the unit.

13:37 Kirk

Really? They didn't have such a positive experience. They were like, I don't think this is for me.

13:42 Kirk

But I stuck with it. I rather enjoyed the interaction. There were some tough spots.

13:49 Kirk

in it for me. But I ended up holding it strong. So just because you're entering college years,

13:58 Kirk

if you're listening and saying, well, I'm just starting off, I'm not really sure where I want to

14:02 Kirk

go.

14:05 Kirk

The freshman year is a year to kind of figure that out. A lot of things are changing for you.

14:11 Kirk

But if you're starting to feel like this is more of your area, you want to start taking one or two

14:17 Kirk

courses in psychology and then really start to focus on human development,

14:23 Kirk

abnormal psychology. People tend to love that course a lot. And then you get into…

14:30 Kirk

Figuring out, is it psychology I want? Is it social work? Is it sociology or some other type of

14:35 Kirk

human service-related field? And begin to check out those experiences.

14:42 Kirk

Volunteer. Volunteerism is big if you're interested in that or maybe even start to work in the

14:49 Kirk

field like I did. Now, opportunities might be limited as a result of your degree level,

14:56 Kirk

but you... Get your feet wet where you can. Volunteer for a hotline. Work at a shelter.

15:03 Kirk

Maybe volunteer at a hospital. Or maybe there might be some opportunities for folks to start to get

15:09 Kirk

exposure and see if this is really what you want to invest in, quite honestly, because we invest a

15:14 Tiffani

lot in our education. And it's not too late. I know a lot of people that, like, they start, you

15:19 Tiffani

know, an undergraduate. I didn't. I know people who they've had. an entire career,

15:25 Tiffani

and then they decide they want to do something different. And so then they start over and go back

15:29 Tiffani

to school. And so I think there's a lot of pressure, especially on freshmen and sophomores. You

15:34 Tiffani

have to know right now what you want to do with your life. And some people do know right now,

15:40 Tiffani

and some people, they're not quite sure. And your advice of take a class,

15:45 Tiffani

see if it clicks, see if it's something that you like, you don't know sometimes until you're

15:49 Tiffani

exposed to something new, if that's something new is going to be for you. And you just have to keep

15:54 Tiffani

going, right? The next best thing. And then eventually you're going to find where your passion.

16:00 Tiffani

and your skills align. And if that is the world of mental health, one piece of advice I would give

16:06 Tiffani

is that there's so many different types of jobs in mental health. And like what you were talking

16:11 Tiffani

about, even just in social work, how many different variances of degrees. And so what I love about

16:17 Tiffani

community mental health and what I really love about Peace River Center is people start with us and

16:21 Tiffani

maybe the specific job they start with isn't quite right for them. Well, then they try something

16:26 Tiffani

different. There's so many different avenues. I love working with kids and families. Like, that is

16:31 Tiffani

what I love. I have a lovely coworker who, you know, she does not love working with kids and

16:37 Tiffani

families. She loves working for the adults. We constantly have this friendly rivalry of like,

16:43 Tiffani

the kids are the best. And she'll come and say, no, the adults are the best. And so that's fine.

16:48 Tiffani

I have a lot of coworkers. in community and mental health, and they work on the recovery side,

16:54 Tiffani

right? We have some work on more of the care coordination side. There's so many different sides of

17:00 Tiffani

social work and mental health. And so I think the trick is... Give yourself the opportunity to

17:07 Tiffani

learn about it. And internships are a great opportunity. Like you said, volunteering is a great

17:12 Tiffani

opportunity. It's a lot easier sometimes to get experience when you don't get paid. Yes.

17:18 Kirk

Right. So you can try it out. So balance it out. Right. You can survive within volunteerism.

17:25 Tiffani

Right. But that is a great start. And then I would say with mental health, everything that I've

17:31 Tiffani

done has built upon the next thing. And so I had a professor say one time that time spent and

17:37 Tiffani

preparation is never wasted. Right. And so I look back and I'm like. Wise words. Should I have

17:43 Tiffani

gotten that journalism degree? Like, oh, I should have done this or I should have done this. And I

17:48 Tiffani

look back and everything that I've done really set me up for the next thing.

17:53 Tiffani

And I didn't see it until I was past it. And looking back, you're like, oh, my goodness, that's

17:58 Tiffani

exactly what I needed. The experience that I gained from that volunteering or that from that

18:03 Tiffani

internship, it was real hard. But that experience prepared me for the next thing. Right.

18:09 Tiffani

And so I feel so equipped and so capable. this season because of all those very random,

18:15 Tiffani

strange experiences that I went through. Exactly. They're very random at first, and then you slowly

18:20 Kirk

start to see it kind of weave together. It's cool. It's kind of a cool thing. And we talked in

18:24 Tiffani

earlier episodes about finding the right therapist for you, and every therapist is different. Well,

18:30 Tiffani

all of our pathways in becoming a therapist... makes us that different person. And so that's why

18:36 Tiffani

you've said before, if you try therapy and you don't get that fit,

18:41 Tiffani

well, try a different therapist because... They're so different. And every therapist comes to the

18:47 Tiffani

table with so many different experiences. I did not know that you had computer science experience.

18:52 Tiffani

And so somebody is going to come and that's going to be the perfect rapport building that connects

18:58 Tiffani

you because of your shared, maybe your shared experience or your shared interest or just the

19:03 Tiffani

experiences that you've gone through have made you the right person for that client. Right. Part

19:06 Kirk

of, well, part of the computer science is being able to look at systems. work with systems,

19:12 Kirk

and that's why systems theory I tend to gravitate to, and family therapy and things like that.

19:18 Kirk

System-based, yeah. It's all systems-based, so that's where, yeah, I kind of see those patterns

19:24 Kirk

and can set up the flowcharts. That's fascinating. Yes, right? So, yeah,

19:29 Kirk

so starting off, look at where you are in your undergrad. That doesn't totally define…

19:35 Kirk

The next step is master's degree. So as you get into finding out what you want undergrad-wise,

19:43 Kirk

then the next step would be to earn a master's. You can step into the field with a bachelor's.

19:50 Kirk

There's not a lot of movement or opportunity, but you can find some of those opportunities.

19:57 Kirk

Community mental health centers tend to allow. that kind of level. But then if you want to go to

20:03 Kirk

that next step, looking at a master's degree would be the next thing, whether it's a clinical

20:10 Kirk

mental health counselor or a clinical social worker, a marriage and family therapist as well,

20:15 Kirk

or even a school counselor. I mean, the counseling starts to broaden its horizons.

20:22 Kirk

And even as you're going through your master's, some people start to look toward the... The next

20:29 Kirk

level, which is doctorate degrees. But you look at once you get into your master's,

20:34 Kirk

you get more into technique, a lot more into ethics with regard to it and really doing assessments

20:41 Kirk

and doing some therapy. And then depending on the degree you get. that becomes you start to prepare

20:51 Kirk

for the licensure. That's where you can start to really practice on your own or with a group.

21:04 Kirk

your master's, now, as you mentioned, you had two years post-master's,

21:09 Kirk

same here for clinical social work, two years post-master's under supervision of somebody.

21:15 Kirk

with a licensed clinical social work degree, talking about ethics, working on cases,

21:21 Kirk

and struggling through those fine-tuning of what you learned in school, in theory,

21:27 Kirk

and then being able to finally…

21:32

that exam because that's in the state of Florida that has changed a couple times you could take it

21:38 Kirk

early right after you got out of school at one point and then one time it was and then you had to

21:43 Kirk

wait till your supervision is over and now I think it's kind of in the middle where it's like 18

21:47 Kirk

months after your master's degree you can you can take it so figure out what it what it is for you

21:54 Kirk

and whatever state you're in to sit for those licensure exams and those exams aren't we're not

22:00 Kirk

talking like tiny little Oh, it's only going to be an hour. These are four-hour exams. They make

22:04 Kirk

grown men cry. They make grown men cry. Yes, they do. And so you do that.

22:10 Kirk

You get that supervision under your belt. And that can be, like I said, that supervision can be

22:16 Kirk

anywhere from two to three years long, depending on your focus level. And sometimes,

22:22 Kirk

depending on... offered through maybe getting some work in the field.

22:28 Kirk

Sometimes, like Peace River Center, if you work for Peace River Center, that supervision is paid

22:33 Kirk

for. It's a benefit for working with us. If not, you're ending up.

22:40 Kirk

paying for a qualified supervisor to be with you for the next two years or three years. And you

22:45 Tiffani

have no choice. You have to have it. You have to have it. Exactly. Exactly. In order to get

22:49 Kirk

through. And then once you pass the state exam, yay, there is celebration. Believe me, there is

22:55 Kirk

celebration. Because, again, that test is no walk in the park.

23:01 Tiffani

Well, the exam is varied. It goes over the diagnostics. We diagnose out of a book called the DSM.

23:09 Tiffani

And so you have to know all of the diagnostic criteria. In addition to that, you have to know about

23:14 Tiffani

ethics and group ethics and the laws and rules. And so you sit down and you're not sure which

23:19 Tiffani

questions you're going to get. And the other thing that I think that was the most stressful part to

23:25 Tiffani

me was with my test, it's recorded. And so there's cameras watching you take it.

23:30 Tiffani

And so the whole time I'm thinking, OK, how many times am I touching my face? How many times am I

23:36 Tiffani

doing this? Because they're watching you and they're watching you. So, you know, they're ensuring

23:41 Tiffani

that you're not, you know, cheating. But I was not cheating, but I was more nervous that they were

23:47 Tiffani

just watching me at all. And so it was stressful just and I had to put out of my mind, OK,

23:53 Tiffani

you just have to pretend that no one's watching you and just take your test like you were here by

23:57 Tiffani

yourself.

24:00 Tiffani

it and it's time you know you only get so much time to do it that's right and i was thank goodness

24:05 Tiffani

able to take it i passed it the first time and the weight of relief that lifted off my shoulders

24:11Tiffani

and i don't know how it was for you but we received our test scores immediately yeah so we took it

24:18 Tiffani

we walked out of the testing room and then the person at the front you know gave me a piece of

24:22 Tiffani

paper and it felt like an eternity when that paper was printing But we got it.

24:27 Tiffani

And after that, I was able to continue practicing as a licensed clinician. And I'm still a licensed

24:34 Tiffani

clinician. Now I'm able to serve as a qualified supervisor for interns coming up.

24:39 Tiffani

And so I'm able to serve for interns pursuing their licensed mental health counselor license,

24:45 Tiffani

but also licensed marriage and family therapist license. I'm duly qualified. But I would say it's

24:52 Tiffani

been such an enriching process to see it come full circle. So now I'm on the other side and I am,

24:57 Tiffani

you know, counseling or supporting interns who are getting their license. And it's kind of surreal

25:02 Tiffani

because not too long ago I was the student. Right. And I still feel like a student a lot of times.

25:09 Kirk

Yeah. No, I agree. Especially with. some of the new changes that have happened,

25:16 Kirk

both in the law and kind of the new models of therapy. It's always good to hear them from the

25:21 Kirk

students because I'm like, oh, I'm learning new stuff, which is great.

25:27 Kirk

But, yeah, I'm a qualified supervisor for licensed clinical social work as well.

25:32 Kirk

So it is interesting how it comes full circle. You have that experience. And some of the things I

25:37 Kirk

learned in my supervision I bring to the table with my supervisees.

25:44 Kirk

Yeah, it can be very rewarding, challenging at times, too, because not everybody is cut out to do

25:52 Kirk

the work.

25:54 Kirk

as qualified supervisors, we can kind of help either guide them into the profession or guide them

26:00 Tiffani

out. Well, it's our role, I think, sometimes really to be gatekeepers, to make sure that those

26:05 Tiffani

gates, that the people who come through those gates to be on the other side are prepared and ready

26:10 Tiffani

to walk through that gate. Absolutely. And not everybody is, even when they finish their degree and

26:15 Tiffani

even when they finish their hours. Right. And I've had... A few students who are about to finish

26:21 Kirk

their master's degree and say, I'm not really sure I still want to do this. My God, that investment

26:26 Kirk

you've made. I mean, you can at any time change your path. There's no limitation to that.

26:33 Kirk

But I just think of how long it took me. I do not take tests well to sit for a four-hour exam.

26:40 Kirk

Oh, my God, my anxiety was off the chain. And it also fed into the fact that it took me a while to

26:46 Kirk

sit for the exam, even well beyond when I was qualified to do so.

26:53 Kirk

But it was around the time, because there was a time when you did not get your test results

26:59 Kirk

immediately. You had to wait a couple weeks. I would have been climbing the walls.

27:05 Kirk

So I was grateful that I got the results right away, because then I knew, okay, I did well or I did

27:11 Kirk

not do so well. And if you don't do well the first go through, you can go back and take it again,

27:17 Kirk

still remaining under supervision. You remain under supervision until you get the little state

27:24 Kirk

license in your hand. So still knowing that,

27:30 Kirk

though, it was a good safety net, knowing that I could take it again. I didn't really want to

27:35 Kirk

because the anxiety going into it was. But I passed my first time as well.

27:40 Kirk

I was like, oh, such a relief. You're right. It's such a relief to know that. Yay.

27:46 Kirk

And then. It doesn't stop there because every year we have to make sure we hit certain marks of,

27:52 Kirk

you know, educational units that we have to have on both sides, the licensed clinical social work

27:59 Kirk

and licensed mental health professionals. We all have to maintain a certain standard as far as

28:04 Kirk

education goes, and there's certain classes we're required to take and then ones that we've got

28:09 Kirk

some room, but we need to have so many units per year. Just showing that we're…

28:16 Kirk

to stay on top of it. So your education doesn't stop once you get the degree.

28:21 Kirk

The degree is the foundation for the house. And then you slowly start putting the framework

28:27 Kirk

together. So really think of your bachelor's level as kind of the structure for the slab or the

28:35 Kirk

foundation of your house. The master's degree is kind of really the formation of that foundation

28:41 Kirk

and the beginning of the framework.

28:45 Kirk

And then the work experience and the licensure supervision is really putting the fine-tuning pieces to your

28:53 Kirk

house. So you're really building this so that you have that opportunity. Try out everything

28:59 Kirk

because, you know, fresh out of the gate, you're not going to get the high job. You're going to get

29:04 Kirk

the entry-level job, and you have to kind of work your way up a little bit. Again,

29:10 Kirk

understand. the expectations of the field you're going into and what you hope to accomplish and

29:15 Kirk

what you want to accomplish. So I hope that helps guide some folks through the process as they try

29:23 Kirk

to figure out their educational pathway into becoming a therapist.

29:28 Kirk

It can be done. There's lots of rewards with it. There's some pressures and boundaries,

29:34 Kirk

certain things you have to do, certain goals and objectives you do for the structured, so it's

29:40 Kirk

standard. throughout the country because the rules and regulations here aren't different from any

29:46 Kirk

other state. It's, you know, they have to maintain them. That creates the standard for across the

29:52 Kirk

board. So hopefully this information was useful and helps those that are trying to make a decision

29:58 Kirk

on where to go. And thank you for joining us.