The Importance of Continuing Education For Therapists
By Pansy Ayala
Keeping up with your continuing education requirements might not be the first thing on your list of things to do as a therapist. However, completing your CE hours with some thoughtfulness and intention can really enhance your effectiveness as a clinician. Whether you’re someone who completes the requirements over time or you wait until the last minute to finish it all, continuing education plays an essential role in our professional development.
Continuing education means that we are engaged in continuous learning. It’s important to stay curious, think critically, and to demonstrate an ongoing interest and commitment to your field and to those you serve.
Here are some reasons why continuing education is important for therapists:
1. Therapists Need Continuing Education to Maintain Your License
Clinicians need to complete a certain number of continuing education hours or credits to maintain licensure in your state. If you fail to do this within the time period allowed, you might lose your ability to practice as a mental health professional.
To keep up with this requirement, it’s essential that you know what your licensing board requires as far as continuing education in your state. Each type of license in each state may require a different number of hours or credits and licensing boards will accept different types of continuing education activities to go towards the requirement.
Consider spreading these hours you need over a period of time instead of cramming them all towards the end of the time period. This will allow you to have some peace of mind that it will be completed in time.
2. Continuing Education Enhances Your Clinical Knowledge and Skills
Continuing education can provide therapists with opportunities to learn new therapeutic skills, techniques, and approaches and to improve on the skills and knowledge you already have. This ultimately makes you a better clinician as you’re able to provide your clients with increased quality of care and to meet their needs to the best of your ability.
Many people focus on continuing education that focuses on their areas of interest or expertise in order to deepen their knowledge and skills in a specific area. However, there are benefits to learning more about different topics and populations that you’re not as familiar with. It may help you with a specific client, allow you to serve a more diverse group of individuals, or widen your perspective and increase knowledge about something new.
Are you someone who currently works with individuals but you’re thinking about working with couples or families? Taking some courses on these modalities might give you the insight you need to decide whether this is a good fit for you and what you might need to know to get started.
Or do you have a new client who is experiencing issues that you are unfamiliar with? Use this as an opportunity to learn more about these issues to increase the quality of care for your client and to truly evaluate whether you have or can gain the knowledge and skills necessary to competently care for your client.
3. Continuing Education Helps You Keep Up With Changes in the Field
The field of mental health is dynamic which means that it is constantly changing and evolving over time. For this reason, it’s important for clinicians to keep up with new knowledge, research, advances in treatment techniques, best practices, and resources available to clinicians and clients alike. Engaging in continuing education helps to provide us with opportunities to discover and learn about new changes in the field.
One recent example of a significant change in the mental health field is the increased use of telehealth services over the last several years. Virtual appointments made it possible for people to access care when they couldn’t go in person but it required our field to resolve certain concerns including confidentiality, efficacy of treatment, and payment while providing care remotely. Learning more about how we can provide the best care using a virtual platform helps us to improve the care that we provide.
4. Continuing Education Increases Your Networking Opportunities
Continuing education can also provide opportunities for therapists and clinicians to network with other professionals in their field. Whether you’re attending a conference or training in person or virtually, building relationships with those around you allows you to share and gain information with each other, find social support and feel connected with others, and perhaps collaborate with others in the future.
Networking might also help you access new clients as others will refer people to you and you’ll also be able to make referrals to other professionals.
How we can help
Ongoing learning and reinforcement of knowledge and skills allows you as a clinician to provide the best possible care for your clients. Continuing education and ongoing professional development will give you the opportunity to honestly evaluate who you are as a clinician and to explore and expand your skill set and interests to better serve your community.
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Author Bio
Pansy Ayala is a licensed therapist with Catalyss Counseling and specializes in working with professionals and parents who are experiencing anxiety, depression, grief and loss, and/or relationship issues. She uses a holistic, individualized approach to better understand who you are, what areas of your life you find problematic, and how you can reach your goals.
