A Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) provides psychotherapy to individuals, couples, families, and groups. LMFTs assess and diagnose mental health conditions, develop treatment plans, help clients work through emotional and behavioral problems, respond to crises, maintain clinical records, and coordinate care with other professionals when needed.
Despite the title, marriage and family therapists do not spend all day counseling married couples.
Many LMFTs see individual clients for most or even all of their caseload. What distinguishes the profession is the training: marriage and family therapy approaches mental health through a relational and family-systems perspective. An LMFT treating one person for depression, for example, may consider the client’s symptoms alongside family history, intimate relationships, communication patterns, social environment, and other systems affecting the person’s life.
In California, LMFTs are licensed mental health professionals regulated by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences. They can work in private practices, behavioral health agencies, hospitals, outpatient clinics, nonprofit organizations, government programs, educational settings, treatment centers, and other mental health environments.
What LMFTs Do at a Glance
| Area of Work | What an LMFT May Do |
|---|---|
| Assessment | Evaluate symptoms, relationships, history, functioning, strengths, and risks |
| Diagnosis | Diagnose mental and emotional disorders within professional competence |
| Individual therapy | Provide psychotherapy to individual adults, adolescents, or children |
| Couples therapy | Help partners address conflict, communication, intimacy, trust, and other relationship concerns |
| Family therapy | Work with family members on relationships, behavior, transitions, and recurring patterns |
| Group therapy | Facilitate therapeutic or psychoeducational groups |
| Treatment planning | Establish clinical goals and select appropriate interventions |
| Crisis intervention | Assess and respond to urgent mental health and safety concerns |
| Documentation | Maintain assessments, progress notes, treatment plans, and other clinical records |
| Care coordination | Work with psychiatrists, physicians, social workers, schools, and other providers |
| Referrals | Connect clients with services outside the therapist’s own expertise or scope |
| Psychoeducation | Help clients understand mental health, relationships, behavior, and coping strategies |
The Board of Behavioral Sciences describes California LMFTs as professionals who provide psychotherapy and related services to individuals, couples, families, and groups. Their training includes evaluating, diagnosing, and treating mental and emotional disorders, behavioral concerns, and relationship dynamics.
LMFTs Provide Individual Therapy
Individual psychotherapy is a major part of MFT practice.
An LMFT might work with a client experiencing:
- anxiety
- depression
- trauma
- grief
- low self-esteem
- relationship problems
- stress
- substance use
- family conflict
- major life transitions
- parenting concerns
- behavioral difficulties
The fact that only one person is in the therapy room does not make the work unrelated to marriage and family therapy.
MFT training encourages therapists to consider the broader context of a person’s difficulties. Someone experiencing anxiety may also be dealing with family expectations, marital conflict, caregiving responsibilities, workplace relationships, or patterns learned while growing up.
A therapist does not necessarily turn every individual session into a discussion about the client’s family. The systems perspective simply provides another way of understanding how emotional and behavioral concerns develop and continue.
LMFTs Work With Couples
Couples therapy is one of the areas most closely associated with the profession.
Couples may seek an LMFT because they are dealing with:
- frequent conflict
- communication problems
- infidelity
- loss of trust
- intimacy concerns
- parenting disagreements
- financial stress
- major life transitions
- separation
- divorce
- premarital concerns
- blended-family issues
Couples therapy can be more complicated than mediating an argument or deciding which partner has the stronger position.
An LMFT looks for patterns in how partners interact. One person may withdraw when conflict begins, for example, while the other becomes increasingly demanding in response. Each reaction reinforces the other, and the couple can become trapped in the same cycle even when both people want the relationship to improve.
Therapy may focus on helping partners recognize those patterns, communicate differently, understand each other’s experiences, rebuild trust, or determine how they want the relationship to move forward.
Not every couples therapy case is aimed at keeping a relationship together. Therapists may also help partners navigate separation, divorce, co-parenting, or other transitions in a healthier way.
LMFTs Provide Family Therapy
Family therapy can involve parents and children, siblings, blended families, adult family members, or other important relationships.
Clients may seek family therapy for concerns involving:
- child or adolescent behavior
- parent-child conflict
- divorce
- blended families
- caregiving
- substance use
- grief
- chronic illness
- communication
- family transitions
- mental illness affecting one family member
- recurring patterns of conflict
Rather than assuming that one person is the entire problem, family therapy examines how people influence one another.
A teenager’s behavior, for example, may be the immediate reason a family enters counseling. The therapist may also find that parent conflict, inconsistent expectations, school stress, communication difficulties, or other family dynamics are contributing to what is happening.
This does not mean assigning blame to the family. It means treating problems in the context in which they occur.
LMFTs Assess Mental Health Concerns
Therapy usually begins with some form of assessment.
An LMFT needs to understand why the client is seeking treatment, how long the problem has been present, how severely it affects daily life, and what other factors may be relevant.
Assessment may include questions about:
- current symptoms
- family history
- relationships
- childhood experiences
- trauma
- physical health
- medication
- substance use
- previous mental health treatment
- work or school
- parenting
- sleep
- social support
- current stress
- safety concerns
For couples and families, the therapist may also assess relationship history, conflict patterns, family structure, significant transitions, and how different people understand the problem.
Assessment continues beyond the first appointment. New information can emerge as clients become more comfortable, circumstances change, or therapy brings previously overlooked issues into focus.
LMFTs Can Diagnose Mental Health Disorders
California LMFTs are trained and licensed to assess, diagnose, and treat mental and emotional disorders within their professional scope and competence.
They may work with conditions such as:
- depressive disorders
- anxiety disorders
- trauma-related disorders
- adjustment disorders
- substance-use disorders
- eating disorders
- obsessive-compulsive disorders
- personality disorders
- other emotional or behavioral conditions
Diagnosis can help a therapist organize treatment and communicate with other healthcare professionals. It may also be necessary when insurance is paying for services.
An LMFT does not have to reduce every client to a diagnosis, however. People also seek therapy because of grief, relationship problems, parenting difficulties, life transitions, stress, or other concerns that may be central to treatment regardless of a diagnostic label.
LMFTs Develop Treatment Plans
Therapy needs some direction.
After assessing the client or family, the LMFT develops treatment goals and identifies how therapy will address them.
A treatment plan might focus on:
- reducing panic attacks
- improving communication
- processing trauma
- decreasing depressive symptoms
- rebuilding trust
- reducing substance use
- establishing healthier boundaries
- improving parent-child relationships
- developing coping skills
- managing grief
- improving day-to-day functioning
Treatment plans are not necessarily fixed for the entire course of therapy. Goals can change as treatment progresses.
A couple that originally enters counseling because of frequent arguments may eventually uncover deeper concerns involving trust or intimacy. An individual seeking help for workplace stress may later realize that longstanding anxiety is affecting several parts of life.
The therapist continually evaluates whether treatment is helping and adjusts the approach when necessary.
What Happens During an LMFT Therapy Session?
There is no single format that every therapist follows.
An individual session may involve discussing events since the previous appointment, identifying recurring emotional or behavioral patterns, practicing coping strategies, processing painful experiences, or working toward a specific treatment goal.
A couples session may involve both partners describing a recent conflict while the therapist helps slow the interaction down and identify what is happening underneath it. Family sessions can involve several people with very different perspectives on the same situation.
Depending on their education and additional training, LMFTs may use approaches such as:
- cognitive behavioral therapy
- family-systems therapy
- structural family therapy
- narrative therapy
- solution-focused therapy
- emotionally focused approaches
- attachment-based approaches
- motivational interviewing
- trauma-informed therapy
- mindfulness-based interventions
Experienced therapists often integrate more than one approach rather than using exactly the same method with every client.
Family Systems Are Central to MFT Training
The family-systems perspective is one of the most important things separating MFT education from other mental health training traditions.
Systems thinking asks therapists to look beyond an isolated symptom.
Imagine that one partner in a marriage becomes increasingly anxious. That anxiety may affect communication with the other partner. The other partner may respond by becoming more distant, which increases the first person’s anxiety and leads to more attempts at reassurance. Both people can unintentionally reinforce a pattern neither of them wants.
A systems-oriented therapist is interested in the cycle rather than simply deciding which partner is causing the problem.
The same idea can apply to parent-child relationships, sibling relationships, extended families, and even individual therapy.
This perspective is why MFT training can remain relevant even when the therapist’s client is only one person.
LMFTs Respond to Crises
Mental health work sometimes involves urgent situations.
An LMFT may encounter clients experiencing:
- suicidal thoughts
- self-harm
- domestic violence
- child or elder abuse
- severe substance use
- acute trauma
- dangerous behavior
- psychiatric deterioration
The therapist may need to assess risk, develop a safety plan, consult with another clinician, make a mandated report, coordinate emergency evaluation, or refer a client to a higher level of care.
Some LMFTs work in settings where crisis intervention is common. Others may see urgent situations only occasionally.
Either way, graduate education, supervised experience, and continuing professional development prepare therapists to respond when routine outpatient counseling suddenly becomes a safety issue.
Documentation Is Part of the Job
LMFTs spend more time writing than many prospective therapists expect.
Clinical records can include:
- intake assessments
- diagnoses
- progress notes
- treatment plans
- risk assessments
- consultation notes
- discharge summaries
- referrals
- insurance documentation
Documentation helps establish what happened in treatment and why clinical decisions were made. It can also have legal, ethical, regulatory, and insurance implications.
A therapist who sees six clients during a day may still need substantial time afterward to finish notes, return calls, handle referrals, and prepare for upcoming sessions.
For someone considering the profession, this is a useful reality check: therapy involves a great deal of human interaction, but it is not an administrative-free career.
LMFTs Coordinate Care With Other Professionals
Clients often need more than psychotherapy.
An LMFT may communicate or collaborate with:
- psychiatrists
- psychologists
- physicians
- nurses
- social workers
- school professionals
- substance-use counselors
- case managers
- other therapists
A client with severe depression might see an LMFT for psychotherapy while a psychiatrist manages medication. A child receiving family therapy may also have support through school. Someone with a substance-use disorder may need coordinated addiction treatment or medical care.
Therapists need to understand where their own expertise ends and when another professional should become involved.
Where Do LMFTs Work?
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that marriage and family therapists work across healthcare, individual and family services, outpatient care, government, and private practice.
California LMFTs can also be found in educational institutions, nonprofits, behavioral health programs, hospitals, and other clinical environments.
Private practice
Private practice is one of the most recognizable LMFT career settings.
A therapist may build a caseload around individuals, couples, families, or a combination of all three. Some develop specialties in trauma, anxiety, relationships, grief, adolescents, perinatal mental health, or another clinical area.
Private practice gives therapists more control over scheduling, clientele, treatment approach, and workload, but it also introduces business responsibilities.
A private practitioner may need to manage or outsource billing, scheduling, marketing, insurance, bookkeeping, taxes, office expenses, telehealth systems, and client inquiries.
Community mental health
Community mental health agencies often serve people whose clinical concerns overlap with housing instability, poverty, trauma, substance use, disability, or other significant challenges.
An LMFT in this environment may provide individual and family therapy, assessments, crisis intervention, groups, treatment planning, and care coordination.
These jobs can provide broad clinical experience because therapists encounter a wide range of diagnoses and circumstances.
They can also involve substantial caseloads and documentation requirements.
Outpatient treatment centers
Outpatient therapists see clients who live in the community and attend scheduled appointments.
An LMFT might work primarily with anxiety, depression, trauma, relationships, substance use, or another specialty while providing individual, couples, family, or group treatment.
Outpatient settings range from large healthcare systems to small group practices, so the work environment can differ considerably.
Hospitals and healthcare organizations
LMFTs can work as part of interdisciplinary healthcare teams.
Clients may be coping with:
- serious illness
- chronic health conditions
- injury
- grief
- medical trauma
- family stress
- depression
- anxiety
- substance use
Therapists in healthcare settings may collaborate frequently with physicians, nurses, social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists.
Some MFTs pursue additional training in medical family therapy because they are particularly interested in the relationship between health, family systems, and mental health.
Schools and educational settings
LMFTs can provide clinical mental health services in school-based programs and other educational environments.
This is different from being a California public-school counselor.
School counselors generally follow the Pupil Personnel Services School Counseling credential pathway. An LMFT working in a school is more likely to be functioning as a mental health clinician or therapist.
The two professions may work with the same students while serving different roles.
Residential and substance-use treatment
Marriage and family therapists also work in intensive treatment programs involving mental health, addiction, eating disorders, adolescents, trauma, and other specialized needs.
The work can include individual counseling, family sessions, groups, treatment-team meetings, crisis intervention, and discharge planning.
Family involvement can be particularly important in treatment settings where a client’s recovery affects—and is affected by—the people around them.
What Does a Typical LMFT Workday Look Like?
An outpatient therapist’s day may combine individual sessions, couples or family therapy, documentation, consultation, and administrative work.
One possible schedule could look like this:
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 8:30 a.m. | Review messages, schedule, and client notes |
| 9:00 a.m. | Individual therapy |
| 10:00 a.m. | Couples session |
| 11:00 a.m. | New-client assessment |
| Noon | Lunch and documentation |
| 1:00 p.m. | Individual therapy |
| 2:00 p.m. | Family session |
| 3:00 p.m. | Consultation or treatment-team meeting |
| 4:00 p.m. | Individual therapy |
| 5:00 p.m. | Progress notes and follow-up |
Another LMFT’s day could look completely different.
A community clinician may spend more time on crises and care coordination. A residential therapist may conduct several groups, while a private practitioner might schedule five or six psychotherapy sessions with minimal team meetings.
The license creates broad possibilities rather than one standard workday.
Do LMFTs Work Mostly With Couples?
Not necessarily.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics specifically notes that marriage and family therapists work with individuals as well as couples and families. Even when treating individuals, MFTs often consider family relationships and development as part of understanding the client’s mental health.
An LMFT may build a practice composed largely of individual adults with anxiety and depression. Another might specialize almost entirely in couples. Someone working in an adolescent treatment center may spend significant time with teenagers and their parents.
The title describes the profession’s relational training tradition more than a rule about who must be sitting in the room.
Can LMFTs Work With Children and Adolescents?
Yes.
Marriage and family therapists may work with children and adolescents when they have the education, training, and experience necessary to do so competently.
Family therapy can be particularly useful when children’s symptoms are intertwined with parent-child relationships, family transitions, divorce, sibling relationships, school issues, or other environmental factors.
Working with minors also introduces clinical and legal considerations around consent, confidentiality, parental involvement, mandated reporting, and developmentally appropriate treatment.
Therapists who plan to specialize in children typically develop additional training and supervised experience beyond the basic MFT degree.
Can LMFTs Treat Addiction?
Yes.
LMFTs may work with clients experiencing substance-use disorders and with families affected by addiction.
Treatment can involve:
- individual psychotherapy
- family counseling
- couples counseling
- relapse-prevention work
- motivational approaches
- treatment of co-occurring mental health conditions
- referrals to medical or intensive addiction services
The family-systems perspective can be especially relevant because substance use often affects partners, children, parents, and other close relationships.
Some therapists make addiction a central specialty, while others encounter it as one issue within a broader clinical caseload.
Can LMFTs Provide Telehealth?
Many do.
Telehealth allows therapists to conduct sessions by secure video rather than requiring every client to come to an office.
Private practices and outpatient organizations may offer fully remote or hybrid schedules, while residential, hospital, crisis, and other settings generally require more in-person work.
Licensing rules still apply when therapy is provided remotely. The relevant issue is often where the client is physically located during the session, not simply where the therapist’s office is.
A California LMFT should not assume that a California license automatically permits unrestricted therapy with clients located in other states.
LMFT vs. LPCC
LMFTs and Licensed Professional Clinical Counselors can perform many similar clinical jobs in California.
Both may provide psychotherapy, diagnose and treat mental health disorders, work with individuals and groups, and build careers in agencies, hospitals, treatment programs, group practices, and private practice.
The larger difference is the training tradition.
MFT education typically puts greater emphasis on:
- family systems
- relationships
- couples therapy
- family therapy
- relational development
- systemic approaches to mental health
LPCC education generally puts greater emphasis on the broader professional counseling model, including areas such as counseling theory, assessment, diagnosis, group counseling, career development, human development, and clinical mental health counseling.
Those differences become less rigid in real practice.
An LMFT may see almost entirely individual clients, while an LPCC with appropriate training and experience may work extensively with couples and families.
For students choosing between the two, the graduate training model can be more informative than simply comparing eventual job titles.
LMFT vs. LCSW
Licensed Clinical Social Workers also provide psychotherapy and frequently hold the same types of mental health jobs as LMFTs.
The distinction again begins largely with education.
Social work training usually places more emphasis on:
- social systems
- community resources
- case management
- advocacy
- public services
- person-in-environment perspectives
MFT programs concentrate more heavily on psychotherapy, relationships, family systems, and clinical treatment.
Both professions can ultimately become therapy-focused careers, so students interested in mental health should compare how they want to be trained as well as where they want to work.
LMFT vs. Psychologist
LMFT is generally a master’s-level route to independent psychotherapy practice, while clinical and counseling psychologists typically complete doctoral education.
Both can provide psychotherapy.
Psychologists may receive considerably more preparation in psychological testing, research, assessment, and other areas associated with doctoral psychology.
Someone primarily interested in becoming a therapist can therefore reach independent clinical practice through the MFT pathway without completing a doctorate.
A person interested specifically in psychologist licensure, extensive psychological testing, or doctoral-level psychology practice needs a different educational path.
LMFT vs. Psychiatrist
Psychiatrists are physicians who attend medical school and complete specialty training in psychiatry.
They can prescribe medication.
LMFTs are psychotherapists, not physicians, and do not prescribe psychiatric medication in California.
The professions frequently work together. A client may see an LMFT for weekly psychotherapy while meeting separately with a psychiatrist for medication management.
What Skills Do LMFTs Need?
Being interested in relationships or being a good listener is not enough by itself.
Successful therapists need a combination of interpersonal and clinical skills.
Active listening and observation
Therapists listen to what clients say while also noticing patterns in communication, emotion, relationships, and behavior.
In family or couples sessions, an LMFT may need to follow several people’s perspectives and observe what happens between them in real time.
Comfort with conflict
Couples and family therapy can bring conflict directly into the room.
A therapist needs to remain useful when two people are angry with each other rather than becoming overwhelmed, choosing sides, or rushing to shut down every disagreement.
Emotional steadiness
Clients may discuss abuse, trauma, grief, betrayal, suicidal thoughts, addiction, violence, or other painful experiences.
LMFTs need empathy while maintaining enough emotional stability to continue thinking clinically.
Clinical judgment
Therapists make decisions involving diagnosis, risk, treatment, referrals, boundaries, confidentiality, and ethics. Many situations do not have one obvious answer, which is why supervision and professional consultation remain valuable even after graduate school.
Cultural responsiveness
Relationships and families are influenced by culture, religion, gender, sexuality, socioeconomic circumstances, immigration experiences, disability, and many other factors.
Therapists need to understand clients within those contexts rather than assuming every family or relationship should operate according to the same model.
Documentation and organization
Therapists also need to manage notes, treatment plans, appointments, referrals, professional deadlines, and other administrative responsibilities.
Good clinical work becomes difficult to sustain when the organizational side of practice consistently falls behind.
Is Being an LMFT Stressful?
It can be.
Marriage and family therapists spend much of their workweek listening to people discuss difficult experiences. Couples may argue during sessions, families may arrive in crisis, and individual clients may be dealing with trauma, severe depression, substance use, grief, or suicidal thoughts.
BLS notes that the occupation can involve evening and weekend work because therapists may schedule appointments around their clients’ availability. Work settings, caseloads, and administrative expectations can also affect how demanding a particular job feels.
The profession can also provide substantial autonomy and variety, particularly after a therapist gains experience and has more control over specialization, caseload, and work setting.
Someone considering the career should evaluate the actual work rather than only the idea of “helping couples.”
How Much Do LMFTs Make?
The national median annual wage for marriage and family therapists was $66,940 in May 2025, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Pay varied substantially by industry:
| Work Setting | 2025 National Median Wage |
|---|---|
| State government, excluding education and hospitals | $92,150 |
| Outpatient care centers | $75,560 |
| Offices of other health practitioners | $64,430 |
| Individual and family services | $61,060 |
The lowest-paid 10% earned less than $44,650 nationally, while the highest-paid 10% earned more than $123,730.
These figures describe the occupation nationally rather than predicting what an individual California LMFT will earn.
Compensation can vary with geographic location, experience, specialty, employer, license status, workload, and self-employment. An AMFT early in supervised practice may also earn considerably less than an experienced independently licensed clinician with an established practice.
What Is the Job Outlook for LMFTs?
Employment prospects are projected to grow faster than the overall labor market.
BLS projects marriage and family therapist employment to increase 14% from 2025 through 2035, compared with 3% for all occupations. Approximately 6,900 openings per year are projected on average over the decade.
BLS expects integrated care to contribute to demand as mental health professionals increasingly work alongside other specialists to address multiple aspects of clients’ health and behavioral needs.
Those projections are useful for understanding the occupation broadly, but they do not mean every LMFT position will offer the same salary, schedule, workload, or benefits.
What Can an LMFT Specialize In?
Many therapists begin their careers relatively broad and develop a specialty as they gain experience.
Potential areas of focus include:
- couples therapy
- family therapy
- children and adolescents
- trauma
- anxiety
- depression
- grief
- addiction
- divorce and separation
- perinatal mental health
- eating disorders
- sex therapy
- LGBTQ+ mental health
- chronic illness
- blended families
- parenting
- older adults
Specialization can develop through practicum, supervised associate work, continuing education, advanced training, and years of clinical experience.
A new graduate does not need to know exactly what their eventual niche will be.
Where Can an LMFT Career Lead?
Many therapists remain focused on direct clinical work throughout their careers, but licensure can also create other opportunities.
Experienced LMFTs may move into:
- clinical supervision
- program management
- behavioral health leadership
- training
- consultation
- group-practice ownership
- private practice
- specialized treatment programs
Some also teach or pursue additional graduate education, although a doctorate is not required to practice independently as an LMFT.
Career development in therapy often happens gradually. A therapist may begin in community mental health, develop expertise in trauma or couples therapy, move into a group practice, begin supervising associates, and eventually establish an independent practice.
There is no single expected progression.
What Education Does an LMFT Need?
California LMFTs complete qualifying graduate education and extensive supervised clinical experience before becoming independently licensed.
A typical route includes a qualifying master’s or doctoral degree, graduate practicum, Associate Marriage and Family Therapist registration, 3,000 hours of supervised professional experience over at least 104 weeks, the California Law and Ethics Examination, and the California LMFT Clinical Examination.
The detailed regulatory process belongs in a licensing guide rather than a career description. If you are planning the credential itself, our California LMFT licensing guide covers those requirements separately.
Students who have not chosen a graduate program yet can compare marriage and family therapy programs in California.
Is LMFT a Good Career Fit?
Marriage and family therapy can be a good fit for someone who wants to provide psychotherapy and is particularly interested in relationships, family systems, and the ways people affect one another.
You do not have to be fascinated exclusively by marriages or family conflict. Individual therapy remains a large part of the profession.
What matters more is whether you enjoy sustained interaction with clients, can handle emotionally difficult conversations, are comfortable with gradual rather than immediate change, and are willing to develop the clinical judgment needed to work with complicated situations.
The career may be less appealing if you dislike documentation, want highly predictable outcomes, prefer limited interpersonal contact, or find the idea of spending several hours each day discussing other people’s emotional and relationship problems draining.
It also requires a substantial training commitment. Independent California practice comes only after graduate education, supervised clinical experience, examinations, and licensure.
For someone who enjoys the actual work, those years can lead to a flexible mental health career spanning agencies, healthcare, treatment programs, group practice, and independent practice.
What the LMFT Career Is Really Like
The name can make marriage and family therapy sound narrower than it actually is.
LMFTs help individuals, couples, families, and groups address mental health conditions, behavioral problems, relationship difficulties, and major life challenges. They assess and diagnose concerns, provide psychotherapy, develop treatment plans, respond to crises, document care, and collaborate with other professionals when clients need additional services.
The family-systems foundation shapes how they approach that work, but it does not dictate one kind of client or one workplace.
One LMFT might spend most of the week seeing individual adults with anxiety and trauma. Another could specialize in couples. A third might work with adolescents and families in a treatment program, while an experienced clinician could divide time between private-practice clients and supervising younger therapists.
That range is part of the appeal of the profession.
If you’re comparing LMFT with other mental health paths, explore the broader range of counseling careers in California before choosing your graduate training. The most useful question is not simply whether you want to become a therapist, but what kind of therapeutic work you want to spend your days doing.
Professional scope, job duties, salaries, and California licensing requirements can change. Verify current professional requirements with the California Board of Behavioral Sciences and current occupational information with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.