The Six Year Rules
MFT Candidate six-year rules
A note about pronouns: Crystals uses both singular and plural pronouns when referring to themselves. Rather than editing pronouns to reflect either a singular or plural viewpoint, we’ve left them as is for authenticity.
Tune in tomorrow, February 1st on Spotify for our interview with Riva.
In addition to sharing her story she talks about advocacy she’s done around the six-year rules. For those of you who don’t know, there are two six year rules for Marriage and Family Therapist candidates in the state of California.
Six-Year Rules:
Obtain 3,000 hours with in a six year time period post graduation
If an MFT associate’s needs to register for a subsequent license number than they can no longer accrue hours in a private practice setting.
As many of you know I earned 2,500 supervised hours as an MFT Intern (now called Associate). However, because I stopped accruing hours when I went into treatment for alcoholism in 2009 and now it’s been over six years, I would lose almost all of those hours. I may be able to keep up to 500 hours that I obtained while in graduate school. I knew about this when I took time off. I didn’t fully realize how close I was to completion at the time, but also my alcoholism and PTSD was going to kill me if I continued on the way I was going. So I chose life and recovery.
I was always aware of the first six year rule. However, I didn’t find out about the second six year rule until a couple of years ago when I was thinking about quitting my job or perhaps after I quit. Time with multiplicity can be a bit slippery. The second rule was what really drove me to pursue other fields. After I quit my job or even now the prospect of going into private practice rather than working for an agency seems feasible. However, this would not be an option because I would have to register for a subsequent license number and the second six year rule would apply, thus I couldn’t obtain hours in private practice even if I hired a supervisor myself.
Last June I talked with someone who works for California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT) about the six year rules and she said that there is some progress being made on this. I gave her my info but didn’t hear back.
I encourage anyone who is interested in learning more about the details around this situation and ways that you can make your voice heard to tune in to Riva’s story and check out her website:
http://abolish6yearrules.website3.me/
Coming to terms with these limitations has been hard. I still sometimes think about going back and registering and starting the long process of earning hours. Yet, at the same time, I am building something beautiful and there seems to be something different and expansive happening in my life and my work.
Show notes for the episode tomorrow:
We interviewed Riva on September 1st, 2023. She shares her experience of getting almost all of her hours towards MFT license before stepping away from doing therapy to focus on her healing and getting to know her OSDD system focus on healing. She describes the experience of finding out about being multiple, struggles to find a therapist, and advocacy she has done about the inherent ableism within the process of becoming a licensed therapist. She describes the six-year rules as they pertain to the Marriage and Family Therapist License in California
Content Warning:
Some episodes may contain heavier subjects. Please tune into what is best for yourselves and whether or not a specific episode is helpful.
This episode contains some strong language. There’s discussions of stepping down from being a therapist in order to make sure one is in a place to provide good therapy, Descriptions of experiences of multiplicity including passive influence, being frightened by experiences of plurality and getting to know one’s system are included throughout the episode. Various terms such as alters, insiders, parts, people, and family members are used to refer to system members throughout the episode. Magical thinkers and spirituality being used by a group to cause harm and internal people coming out in response is briefly mentioned. There’s also a conversation about therapists who are unable/unequipped to work with multiplicity. Ableism in the field of mental health and how this relates to the six-year-rule is a major topic of this episode, including how this effects people in various life situations including terminal illness. The McLean Hospital video that was released in March of 2023 that featured several systems social media videos and became a major event in the plural community is referenced. Also some discussion about working as a Rabbi and Rabbinical School. The movie Blue Jasmine, about a woman who gets married and drops out of school with one semester left, is mentioned.
Disclaimer:
We are not here to give advice, diagnose, or treat any conditions. Rather, we bring a variety of perspectives, some of which might conflict with each other, or that we may even disagree with. It is our hope that by hearing different views and experiences listeners can be empowered with greater clarity and options to decide for themselves what avenues to pursue.
Resources:
Abolish 6 Year Rules
http://abolish6yearrules.website3.me/
Connect with Crystals and her work at the links below:
Website: https://multifacetedjourneys.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/crystalsmultifaceted/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CrystalsMulti