The Honest Guide

Becoming a Therapist in California: An Honest Guide

Clear answers to the questions prospective students care about most, backed by real data and no sales pitch.

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Who wrote this, and what we have at stake

Three of us wrote this guide, and we want to be clear about our perspective. We work at Sentio University, a nonprofit graduate school in Los Angeles that trains marriage and family therapists. Like any graduate program, enrollment matters to us, and we have an interest in helping students understand and consider our program. So we made a few rules for this guide: we cover every path into the field, not only the one we teach; we cite our sources; and when we move from fact to opinion, we say so. You will also notice two points of view throughout the guide: we favor training that is hands-on and practice-based, and we have thoughts about AI in therapist education, which we save for the final chapter.

Dr. Tony Rousmaniere
President and Program Director, Sentio University
Dr. Alexandre Vaz
Chief Academic Officer and Faculty Supervisor
Mikaela Abundez
Director of Student Services

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About the authors

Three of us wrote this guide. We work at Sentio University, and the note above explains our perspective and the rules we set for ourselves.

Portrait of Dr. Tony Rousmaniere
Dr. Tony Rousmaniere
President and Program Director, Sentio University

Tony Rousmaniere, Psy.D. is the President of Sentio University, and the Executive Director of the Sentio Counseling Center. He is also Past-President of the psychotherapy division of the American Psychological Association, and the author of many books on Deliberate Practice and psychotherapy training, including the book series The Essentials of Deliberate Practice (APA Books). In 2017 he published the widely cited article in The Atlantic Monthly, “What your therapist doesn’t know”. Dr. Rousmaniere supports the "open data" movement towards making clinical outcome data available to consumers, policy-makers, and researchers by publishing his clinical outcome data on his website. He is a licensed psychologist in California and Washington. Dr. Rousmaniere’s ORCID, Google Scholar, and Research Gate profiles.

Portrait of Dr. Alexandre Vaz
Dr. Alexandre Vaz
Chief Academic Officer and Faculty Supervisor, Sentio University

Alexandre Vaz, Ph.D. has extensive experience in academic leadership and is the cofounder of the Deliberate Practice Institute. He provides workshops, webinars, and advanced clinical training and supervision to clinicians around the world. Dr. Vaz is the author/co-editor of many books on deliberate practice and psychotherapy training and the book series The Essentials of Deliberate Practice (APA Books). He has held multiple committee roles for the Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration (SEPI) and the Society for Psychotherapy Research (SPR). Dr. Vaz is founder and host of Psychotherapy Expert Talks, an acclaimed interview series with distinguished psychotherapists and therapy researchers. He is a licensed clinical psychologist in Portugal. Dr. Vaz’s ORCID, Google Scholar profiles.

Portrait of Mikaela Abundez
Mikaela Abundez
Director of Student Services, Sentio University

Mikaela Abundez is the Director of Student Services at Sentio University and a Registered AMFT (#144302) at the Sentio Counseling Center. She holds a Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy and is trained in a variety of therapeutic modalities, including Emotionally Focused Therapy, Schema Therapy, and Internal Family Systems. Mikaela works with teens and adults, specializing in developmental trauma, relational challenges, depression, anxiety, and self-esteem concerns. Mikaela’s private practice is at growwithmikaela.com.