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.

2017-2021 LAMFT had aligned with the AAMFT to connect on a partnership to develop and grow LAMFT.

2022 LAMFT is established its independency as an organization away from AAMFT and worked on redefined its bylaws to establish an order to focus on the profession of MFTs,  and structuring to support the growth and development of LAMFT. Our Conferences, membership, and awareness of MFTs have grown and the Board continues to work on improving MFT awareness in the state.