Louisiana Association for Marriage & Family Therapy

1976 The Louisiana Association For Marriage & Family Therapy Is Incorporated as a State Division of AAMFT.

2001 Lane Brigham & Carol Kacer, President and President-Elect of LAMFT, spearhead a successful effort to pass legislation creating licensure for MFTs in Louisiana. As a result, the first Marriage and Family Therapy Advisory Committee (MFTAC) to the LPC Board is appointed and nearly one thousand licensees are grandfathered.

2009 The AAMFT Executive Board announced at the Annual Conference in Sacramento that licensure for MFTs has passed in all fifty states using a “model law” template.

2010 Legislation passes adding additional members to MFTAC. LAMFT successfully fights the creation of an Omnibus Board pushed by a State Representative. Though this effort fails, the resulting compromise adds the ‘serious mental illness” language to our law.

2016  LAMFT joins for the first time in a truly collaborative effort with LCA, to mount a grass-roots campaign to have SMI removed from the Mental Health Counselors Act. Working closely with State Senator Jean-Paul Morrell of New Orleans, LCA, and LAMFT successfully removed the “serious mental illness” language from the law while permanently establishing LMFTs and LPCs right to independently “diagnose and treat,” a milestone for both licenses.

2017 The Executive Board of LAMFT in a series of emails beginning in June 2017 announces to its members that all state divisions of AAMFT, including LAMFT, may dissolve. The dissolving of state divisions is the result of the national organization’s passage of new bylaws aimed at improving the long-term financial outlook for the organization in light of declining membership. For this reason among others, AAMFT indicates that the restructuring process for all state divisions will be completed by the end of 2018.

2018 Membership votes to dissolve the corporate structure of LAMFT and accept a restructured partnership with AAMFT, creating a Geographic Interest Network (GIN). This was a tightly divided topic for many were unsure of which would be better for MFTs in the state of Louisiana. However, AAMFT agreed to work to promote the development and growth of Louisiana MFTs.

2021 December, AAMFT announced that they were disenfranchising the GIN of LAMFT, which would become effective in January 2022 and AAMFT would assist current members in the Family Teams. All services by AAMFT would be stopped

2022 Jennifer Rush moved into the President Role early to question the current members of LAMFT if they wish to vote to dissolve or seek autonomy as a free-standing corporation. Majority of the members expressed a desire to establish an independent LAMFT, which took almost a year to establish financial, memberships, and growth.

2024 LAMFT is established and doing well. Conferences, membership, and awareness of MFTs have grown. LAMFT had redefined its bylaws to establish an order to focus on the profession of MFTs.