Psychologist Licensure in Louisiana: Degree, Supervised Hours and the EPPP

The board licenses the practice of psychology and issues the provisional licensed psychologist as the doctoral applicant's supervised stage: the statute requires that licensee to maintain a supervisory relationship with a licensed psychologist or medical psychologist, the rules cap the provisional licence at three renewals, and the rules bar a provisional licensee from contracting directly with clients, claiming to hold independent licensure, supervising other mental health professionals or independently evaluating people.

The licensed psychological associate, created in 2024, is a genuine master's-level licence whose holder may practise independently — a different position from the Assistant to a Psychologist registration, which the rules describe as non-licensed.

The specialist in school psychology is a separate specialist-level licence under its own subpart of the rules.

Medical psychologists sit outside the board entirely, licensed by the Board of Medical Examiners.

On the board's applications page, psychologist, provisional and LSSP applications run through the Online Licensing Portal; the LPA application is paper-based.

The doctoral requirement is stated in one line: a doctoral degree with a major in psychology from a school or college as defined in the Chapter.

The rules' doctoral-program section, LAC 46:LXIII.303, defines what counts as a doctoral program, so an applicant from an unusual program should resolve that question with the board before counting on the degree.

The associate statute carries its own education line — a master's degree in health service psychology from a psychology program approved by the board — and the associate rules go further, requiring a program that is APA-accredited at graduation or equivalent as the rules define it.

Accreditation is therefore the practical gate for associate applicants, not a quality nicety.

Read this with your transcript open.

The rule requires two years of full-time supervised experience — 4,000 hours — and the internship can cover only half: up to 2,000 hours of an acceptable predoctoral internship, and only if the internship was required as part of the doctoral degree and meets the board's program requirements.

Everything else must be post-doctoral, and the rules fix the starting line precisely: post-doctoral hours begin only after all degree requirements are met, with no outstanding points of evaluation, verified by the degree-granting institution, and no credit is given for practice connected to course-work practicum for which graduate credits were awarded.

Each qualifying assignment must run at least 500 hours at least half-time, and supervised practice must be completed within five calendar years.

The statute's one substitution: five years of licensed practice as a psychologist in another state, with no disciplinary actions, may qualify to meet one year of the post-doctoral experience.

The written exam is the EPPP, passed at 70 percent correct on the paper and pencil version or a scaled score of 500 on the computer-administered version.

The statute then requires an oral examination as well, and the rules admit a candidate who passes the written exam to the oral before the board.

A candidate has a maximum of four years to pass the written exam; miss the deadline and the rule removes the candidate from candidacy and closes the application, and a provisionally licensed candidate also loses the provisional licence.

Sitting early, while still finishing the supervised years, requires the provisional licence, for a candidate completing the final year of postdoctoral supervision.

Reciprocity applicants add the Louisiana Jurisprudence Examination before a Louisiana licence issues.

No EPPP Part 2 requirement appears in the statute or the June 2026 rules compilation — a reading with a shelf life, because ASPPB's integrated EPPP replaces both parts for first-time takers from fall 2027 and becomes the only version from April 1, 2028.

For the provisional licensed psychologist, the statute sets the relationship in terms of authority rather than meeting counts: that licensee must maintain a relationship with a licensed psychologist or a medical psychologist for the purposes of clinical supervision.

The rules then govern every doctoral licensure candidate's supervisor: supervision must come from a psychologist licensed at the doctoral level or from a medical psychologist, and that supervisor must have legal functioning authority over and professional responsibility for the supervisee's work.

For the associate licence, the rules add a qualified-supervisor designation covering psychologists in good standing and medical psychologists who apply, and set contact minimums in hours: full-time candidates receive at least one hour of general professional supervision per week and part-time candidates at least two hours per month, with no more than 50 group-supervision hours counting.

The associate licence's independence is real but carved up by subsection.

The statute says an LPA may practise independently, and the scope includes rendering psychological services to individuals, groups or families, including diagnosis for the purpose of offering mental health counseling and psychotherapy.

The same statute then withdraws the testing half of the work: an LPA may administer and score single dimensional symptom scales and checklists, but may not independently administer, score or interpret psychological tests, personality, psychopathology, intellectual functioning, academic achievement, neuropsychological functioning or forensic assessments, and may not diagnose severe mental illness, major disorders, or mental disorders as defined by the board.

LPAs must stay within established competence and maintain malpractice insurance.

Prescribing runs through a different statute and a different board: a medical psychologist licensed by the Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners may prescribe under the Medical Psychology Practice Act, but the act provides that nothing in it permits the administration or prescription of a narcotic.

Louisiana appears on the PSYPACT Commission map as enacted but not yet effective: H.B.

486, enacted May 22, 2026, with an effective date of January 1, 2028, per the map as read in September 2026.

Until then the map's own key governs the reading, so a Louisiana psychologist who wants to practise telepsychology into a participating state, or work there temporarily in person, still needs that state's licence.

The compact's authorizations are built on the doctoral licence, so the LPA and LSSP stand outside it.

After January 1, 2028, the mechanics run through ASPPB's E.Passport or Interjurisdictional Practice Certificate plus the compact's own authorizations.

Reciprocity requires licensure as a psychologist in a reciprocating ASPPB jurisdiction with substantially equivalent requirements, five years of satisfactory licensed experience, passage of its written and oral exams, a continuous academic year of full-time doctoral residency, no professional-board discipline or pending complaints; every applicant also passes the jurisprudence exam, and the board may require a character-fitness-practice meeting.

Two routes bypass the §201(A)(1) list for a psychologist licensed in another U.S. state, territory or Canadian province: a current ASPPB Certificate of Professional Qualification or current ABPP diplomate status in good standing.

The §203 Welcome Home endorsement covers a psychologist relocating to and residing in Louisiana, with requirements including, but not limited to, one year of current in-good-standing licensure as a psychologist by an ASPPB jurisdiction and proof of Louisiana residency.

The associate chapter parallels this: LPA reciprocity requires five years of current in-good-standing LPA-or-equivalent licensure from a similar-agreement ASPPB jurisdiction whose requirements are substantially equivalent to R.S.

37:2356.4, and LPA Welcome Home takes one year of that credential from an ASPPB jurisdiction requiring an examination or education, training, or experience standards.

Licences renew annually — a licence is valid one year, August 1 through July 31 — and the continuing education cycle is biennial: 30 hours or credits within the reporting period running July 1 to June 30, of which two hours must cover ethics or law and two multiculturalism or diversity.

The CE rule was amended by LR 52:977 in June 2026, so check the board's current requirements against your own reporting period before renewal.

Licensed psychological associates are governed by the same CE chapter, with 'psychologist' read as 'licensed psychological associate.'

The largest recent change is the licensed psychological associate: created by Acts 2024, No. 286, with implementing rules published at LR 51:1580 in October 2025.

The board's applications page states the LPA application process is currently paper-based, not submitted through the Online Licensing Portal.

LR 52:977 (June 2026) both amended the CE rule and promulgated the psychologist Welcome Home endorsement in §203.

The medical psychologist statute was amended by Acts 2024, No. 731: a medical psychologist is now exclusively licensed and regulated by the Board of Medical Examiners and need not maintain the LSBEP psychology licence, with dual licensure optional.

PSYPACT's H.B.

486 was enacted May 22, 2026, effective January 1, 2028.