Thirty years as a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC)

​It dawned on me recently that I had not written a Blog post about becoming an LPC, and practicing as one for the last 30 hears.  My preparation to become an LPC in the State of Virginia, began as part of my pastoral psychoanalytic psychotherapy training. At the Pastoral  Counseling Institute where I trained, Pastoral Counselor and LPC training  were combined into one training program. 

Normally one would need to get a Masters Degree in Counseling  to become an LPC. Fortunately for  me, my Seminary counseling courses, plus the Pastoral Counseling Institute's counseling coursework, and one course at a nearby University, were sufficient for me to obtain an equivalency  of a Masters Degree in Counseling.  Thus, I had all the necessary didactic requirements for a LPC.     

The supervision requirements were to complete a practicum, internship  and  residency.  I  did my practicum at the Pastoral Counseling Institute, and my residency at the Pastoral Counseling Center where I first practiced as a resident in counseling.  Because of my interests in psychoanalytic psychotherapy my residency supervisors consisted of a psychoanalyst , a LPC, and a psychoanalytically oriented psychiatrist. 

After all the didactic coursework, supervision, and required hours of experience doing counseling, I took and passed the LPC exam in the State of Virginia.  I was then a Licensed Professional Counselor. 

In the LPC training world, you are required to learn the ten main counseling  theories and techniques. And, you are free to then choose any one of those theories and  techniques as your orientation, or to integrate them in various ways as you practice as an LPC. 

If you have read some of my Blog posts, you will recall that I chose psychoanalytic theory and technique as my counseling practice orientation.  And I practiced as a psychoanalytically oriented LPC  for twenty five years. 

In the last  five years I have further trained in neuropsychoanalysis/ psychotherapy, and now practice this approach to therapy.  . 

I have also been happy  these last thirty years to have had the opportunity of supervising fourteen LPC interns and residents in psychoanalytic  therapy. And in the last five years, I have so far supervised one resident in neuropsychoanalytic psychotherapy. Supervising counseling trainees has required  that I keep up with what is going on  in the LPC world, the psychoanalytic  world and now the neuropsychoanalytic world. I must say that I have enjoyed the continuing education in all three worlds.   

So, this is how I came to be a LPC, and how I have practice as one for these last thirty years.