Becoming a licensed therapist in Georgia requires a master’s degree, a national licensing exam, and several years of supervised clinical work. The specific steps vary depending on which type of therapist license you pursue, but the most common path is through the Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) credential, overseen by the Georgia Composite Board of Professional Counselors, Social Workers, and Marriage and Family Therapists.
Choose Your License Type
Georgia offers several therapist license categories, each with its own educational track and supervising board. The three most common are:
- Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) requires a master’s degree primarily in counseling or applied psychology. This is the most common license for therapists in Georgia who provide talk therapy, mental health counseling, and clinical assessments.
- Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) requires a master’s degree in social work. Social workers often practice therapy but may also work in case management, community services, or hospital settings.
- Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) requires a master’s degree focused on marriage and family therapy. This license is designed for clinicians who specialize in relationship and family dynamics.
The rest of this guide focuses primarily on the LPC path, since it is the most frequently searched route to practicing therapy in Georgia. The LCSW and LMFT paths follow a similar structure of degree, supervised practice, and exam, but with their own program accreditation and hour requirements.
Earn the Right Master’s Degree
Georgia requires a master’s degree from a program that is primarily counseling in content or focused on applied psychology. The degree must be formally designated as a master’s on your official transcript. A graduate certificate or a doctoral degree alone does not satisfy this requirement.
Your program must be accredited by one of the following: the Council on Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP), the Council on Rehabilitation Education (CORE), or a regionally accredited institution recognized by the Council on Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). If your program is not directly CACREP or CORE accredited, it must be “substantially similar in coursework and content” to a CACREP or CORE program. In practice, this means your transcripts need to show graduate-level coursework covering core counseling areas like human development, assessment, ethics, group work, and psychopathology.
Your degree program must also include a supervised practicum or internship of at least 600 hours built into the curriculum. These are clinical training hours you complete while still in school, typically at a community mental health center, hospital, school, or private practice training site. This practicum requirement is separate from the post-graduate supervised hours you will need later.
Apply for Your Associate License
After graduating, you cannot practice independently right away. Your next step is to apply for an Associate Professional Counselor (APC) license through the Georgia Secretary of State’s office. The APC license allows you to see clients and accumulate supervised clinical experience under the oversight of a fully licensed supervisor.
To apply, you will submit your application through the Georgia Board’s online portal, provide official transcripts showing your completed master’s degree, and pay the application fee. If you have not yet passed the required national licensing exam, you can apply for licensure by examination, which allows you to take the test as part of the application process. If you have already passed the national exam, you can apply under the exam waiver option, which skips that step.
The board reviews applications in the order they are received, and processing times can stretch to several weeks during busy periods. Plan ahead so you are not left in a gap between graduation and the start of your supervised work.
Complete Post-Graduate Supervised Hours
As an Associate Professional Counselor, you need to complete a substantial number of supervised clinical hours before you can apply for full LPC status. During this period, you work with clients under the guidance of a board-approved supervisor who holds a full LPC (or equivalent license) and has been credentialed by the state to provide supervision.
Your supervisor meets with you regularly, reviews your cases, and signs off on your hours. Finding a good supervisor matters: they shape your clinical skills and their documentation is what the board will review when you apply for full licensure. Many new associates find supervisors through their employer, while others arrange private supervision for a fee that typically runs between $50 and $150 per session.
Keep meticulous records of your hours from day one. Track the dates, types of client contact (individual, group, couples), and supervision sessions. Reconstructing this information years later is difficult, and incomplete logs can delay your full licensure application.
Pass the National Licensing Exam
Georgia requires passage of a national licensing examination for professional counselors. The board references the “required PC national licensure examination” in its application materials. The two exams most commonly associated with LPC licensure nationwide are the National Counselor Examination (NCE) and the National Clinical Mental Health Counseling Examination (NCMHCE), both administered by the National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC).
You can take the exam either before or during your time as an associate. Some candidates sit for the exam shortly after completing their master’s degree, while the material is still fresh. Others wait until they have more clinical experience. Both approaches are valid, but passing early means one less hurdle when you are ready to apply for full licensure.
The exams cost around $275 to register and are offered at Pearson VUE testing centers. You will need to apply through NBCC to receive your eligibility and scheduling information. Study materials, prep courses, and practice exams are widely available, and most candidates spend several weeks preparing.
Apply for Full LPC Licensure
Once you have completed your supervised hours and passed the national exam, you can apply to upgrade from your APC to a full Licensed Professional Counselor license. This application goes through the same Georgia Secretary of State portal. You will submit documentation of your completed supervision hours, your exam results, and any additional paperwork the board requires.
With a full LPC, you can practice independently, start a private practice, accept insurance panels, and supervise others (after obtaining a supervisor credential). This is the point where your career options expand significantly.
Maintain Your License With Continuing Education
Georgia therapist licenses must be renewed on a biennial (every two years) cycle. To renew, you need to complete a set number of continuing education (CE) hours during each renewal period. For licensed counselors, a portion of those hours can be completed through on-demand, self-paced courses, but ethics CE hours must be earned in a live, synchronous format. That means a real-time class, webinar, or workshop where you can interact with the instructor. Pre-recorded ethics courses do not count toward your ethics requirement, though they may count as general CE hours.
Marriage and family therapists and social workers in Georgia follow the same rule: ethics hours must be synchronous. Keep your CE certificates organized and accessible, as the board may audit your records at any time during the renewal cycle.
Timeline From Start to Finish
Most people spend two to three years completing a master’s degree in counseling. After graduation, the supervised practice period as an associate typically takes an additional two to four years depending on whether you work full-time or part-time and how quickly you accumulate direct client hours. All told, expect the full process from starting your master’s program to holding a full LPC to take roughly four to seven years.
If you already hold a license in another state, Georgia offers a licensure by endorsement pathway that can shorten the process. You will still need to demonstrate that your education and experience meet Georgia’s standards, but you may not need to repeat the exam or redo supervised hours that another state already accepted.