16 CCR § 1811, amended · effective 1 April 2026 · read 16 August 2026
What your profile must literally say, since April 2026.
In short
What must my therapist profile legally say in California?
The required elements for licensees, associates and trainees, and the seven ways the Board's own examples show profiles failing
Three required elements for licensees, five for associatesThe Board rewrote its advertising rule and republished its fact sheet and example sheets to match, all effective 1 April 2026. A licensee’s ad must carry three elements; an associate’s must carry five, including an employer name and a supervision statement; a trainee’s five include the supervisor’s license number. And “advertisement” includes your website, your directory profiles and your social media — not just print. This page is the rule as a checklist, from the Board’s own publications.
What counts as an adLicensees: three thingsAssociates: five thingsTrainees: five thingsHow profiles failSources
Scope first
Your website is an advertisement. So is your bio.
The definition reaches “mail, television, radio, motion picture, newspaper, book, list or directory of healing arts practitioners, Internet, or other electronic communication” — plus business cards, signs and printed material. In practice that means the places a therapist actually appears: the practice website, a Psychology Today-style directory profile, Instagram and LinkedIn bios, and an email signature that states a title. The Board’s FAQ adds two operating rules for the web: on a website the required elements must be easy to find and appear near each other, and on space-limited social media the required information must still appear — a link to a compliant page is the accepted escape valve.
Licensed · three required elements
Name as filed, full title or allowed abbreviation, license number.
The name on the license, not only a nickname or a shortened professional name. A preferred name may appear alongside it, but the filed name has to be there.
“Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist” or LMFT/MFT; “Licensed Clinical Social Worker” or LCSW; “Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor” or LPCC; “Licensed Educational Psychologist” or LEP. Invented abbreviations are the classic citation.
On the profile, not behind a link. The pattern the Board’s example sheet blesses is simply: filed name, title, number.
The Board’s worked examples for licensees — compliant and non-compliant side by side — are in its licensee example sheet.
Registered associates · five required elements
Everything a licensee shows, plus your employer, plus a supervision statement.
Same rule as licensees: a nickname or a former name may appear, but only alongside the registered name.
“Registered Associate Marriage and Family Therapist” (or Registered Associate MFT), “Registered Associate Clinical Social Worker,” or “Registered Associate Professional Clinical Counselor” (or Registered Associate PCC). AMFT, ASW and APCC are allowed ONLY when the full title also appears — the abbreviation alone is not compliant.
Called a registration, not a license — the Board’s non-compliant examples flag “License No.” on an associate as misleading.
The rule’s subdivision (b): a registrant advertises as somebody’s supervisee, never as a freestanding practice.
“Supervised by a licensed person” is the minimum the fact sheet accepts; “Supervised by a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist” or naming the supervisor with their title are the fuller forms in the example sheet. Vague forms like “practicing under supervision” appear in the NON-compliant column.
Trainees · five required elements
No abbreviations at all, and the supervisor’s number goes in.
A trainee’s advertisement must spell out “marriage and family therapist trainee” in full — no abbreviation of the trainee title is permitted — plus the employer or volunteer entity, a statement of licensed supervision, the supervisor’s license designation, and the supervisor’s license number. The minimum compliant shape from the Board’s example sheet: full name, the spelled-out trainee title, the placement’s name, and “Supervised by a” plus the supervisor’s license type and number.
The non-compliant column
How real-shaped profiles fail, in the Board’s own examples.
MFTA and ACSW both appear in the Board’s non-compliant examples. The allowed set is closed: if it is not on the list, spelling it out is the only safe move.
AMFT on its own fails - the full registration title has to appear somewhere on the same advertisement.
An associate holds a registration; calling it a license in an ad is flagged as implying licensure.
The example sheet flags an address of the form name.MFT@… on a pre-licensed person as implying licensure - handles and addresses are part of the ad.
A supervision statement rendered in tiny type draws the same flag as omitting it.
Preferred names are fine ALONGSIDE the filed name, never instead of it.
“Cure” language fails under Business and Professions Code § 651’s false-or-misleading standard, which rides along with every element above.
The Board’s stated posture on getting it wrong: a notification first, with a chance to correct before formal action in many cases — and citation authority under § 651 behind it. The fix costs an afternoon; the audit costs more.
Where every figure came from
Sources.
The Board’s own publications, all Revised 03/2026, Effective 4/1/2026, fetched 16 August 2026
The law under the publications
This page restates the Board's own published requirements as a checklist and adds nothing to them. Where your situation is unusual - multiple employers, a name change mid-registration, a shared group website - the fact sheet and the Board's licensing staff are the authority, not this page. Nothing here is legal advice.
