Psychologist Licensure in New Mexico: Degree, Supervised Hours and the EPPP

The board issues one doctoral licence, one master's-level licence and prescribing authority in two stages.

The psychologist associate licence is not a probationary stage: its conditions of practice are written for licensees, and supervision by a licensed psychologist or board-certified psychiatrist is built into the licence itself, with a carve-out only for psychological or cognitive testing, which a licensed psychologist must supervise.

Prescribing rides on top of the psychologist licence — a conditional prescription certificate under 16.22.23, then a full prescription certificate under 16.22.25.

Each title carries its own scope, and the associate's public advertising must say exactly what the licence is.

The psychologist licence requires graduation from a doctoral program designated as a doctoral program in psychology by a nationally recognized designation system or accredited by a nationally recognized accreditation body, with the degree major in clinical, counseling or school psychology, from a university offering a full-time course of study in psychology.

The applicant carries the burden of showing the program meets the Professional Psychology Act.

The associate's degree rule splits by date: a master's received before July 1, 1985 must come from a department of psychology or be primarily psychological in nature from a program with substantially equivalent requirements, while one received after July 1, 1985 must come from a department of psychology, counseling psychology, or school psychology.

Either way the graduate must show at least three graduate semester hours in each of three of nine content areas, with no course counted toward more than two areas, and at least two semesters, or four quarter hours, of clinical, counseling, or school psychology practicum.

The rule asks for two years (3,000 hours) of supervised experience.

Up to 1,500 hours may come from doctoral practicum overseen by the training program, up to 1,500 from an APA-approved doctoral internship, and up to 750 from a non-APA internship.

Paragraph (d) then sets the order of operations: after totalling practicum and allowed internship hours, whatever remains of the 3,000 must be supervised postdoctoral work.

The arithmetic matters — 1,500 qualifying practicum hours plus a 1,500-hour APA internship can exhaust the requirement before the degree, so the claim that New Mexico simply requires a postdoctoral year misreads the rule.

A non-APA internship must fit inside 24 consecutive months at 20 or more hours per week.

Applicants for both the psychologist and psychologist associate licences take and pass the EPPP, with the passing score equal to or greater than what ASPPB recommends, plus an online jurisprudence exam on ethical standards, New Mexico laws, and board regulations as they apply to psychologists and their clients or patients.

A passed exam does not have to be retaken if the other score lags.

The cultures evidence is not a pre-licence gate: 16.22.5.9(E), and 16.22.12.12(F) for associates, requires an applicant to furnish evidence of an awareness and knowledge of New Mexico cultures during the first year of licensure.

No EPPP Part 2 requirement appears in the rules read, and the question is moving anyway: ASPPB replaces the two-part exam with one integrated EPPP for first-time takers from fall 2027, the only version from April 1, 2028.

Postdoctoral hours have their own rule.

One licensed psychologist serves as primary supervisor, and supervision is provided on a one-to-one basis for one hour per week, at least 46 hours a year; telesupervision counts the same as face-to-face.

The supervisor cannot be a family member or in a dual relationship, and supervision cannot be delivered in an agency in which the applicant has a financial interest.

Before starting postdoctoral hours in New Mexico, the applicant submits a postdoctoral supervisory plan to the board, which responds within 60 days; if the board does not approve hours completed without a plan, part or all of that postdoctoral supervised experience shall be repeated.

For postdoctoral hours outside New Mexico, a plan is optional.

An associate may bill clients independently from the supervisor, if the arrangement preserves the supervisor's responsibility.

The supervisory agreement is filed with the board and updated at biennial renewal, and both parties must notify the board in writing within 30 days if the supervisory relationship ends.

Prescribing is gated twice.

The conditional certificate requires no fewer than 450 classroom hours of psychopharmacology training within five years of applying, an 80-hour assessment practicum, a general 400 hour practicum treating a minimum of 100 patients with mental disorders, and a pass on the PEP.

The full certificate requires an active unrestricted New Mexico psychology licence, malpractice insurance, and two years of prescribing psychotropic medication, completed or anticipated at application and certified by the supervising clinician, plus an independent peer review.

Prescribing runs under the collaboration guidelines: the psychologist must obtain the patient's release to contact their primary treating health care practitioner, may not treat pharmacologically without an ongoing collaborative relationship with that practitioner (a refusing patient is referred elsewhere), and must give written notice within 24 hours of issuing a prescription.

The PSYPACT Commission map, as retrieved on September 24, 2026, places New Mexico in its non-PSYPACT list: jurisdictions that have not enacted PSYPACT legislation and have no active PSYPACT legislation.

The rules read do not mention PSYPACT either.

Practically, a New Mexico psychologist who wants to practise telepsychology or temporary in-person work in another jurisdiction needs that jurisdiction's own licence, and an incoming psychologist needs a New Mexico licence through the endorsement or standard routes.

The same map counts 46 enacted and 44 effective participating jurisdictions; New Mexico sits outside both groups, alongside California, Hawaii and Oregon.

An applicant licensed in another jurisdiction can endorse into New Mexico when that jurisdiction's requirements of education, supervised experience and EPPP passing score meet or exceed New Mexico's.

The applicant must hold a doctoral degree or a substantially equivalent one, have been licensed for two years, have passed the EPPP, and have no pending disciplinary actions, no formal disciplinary actions in the last two years and no past suspensions or revocations.

Rule 16.22.5.11 opens a parallel national-credential route - the CPQ, a National Register HSPP credential, or ABPP, each at the doctoral level - for a licensee in good standing two years in another jurisdiction who has passed the EPPP, with no disciplinary actions in the prior two years and no past suspensions or revocations in any jurisdiction of licensure.

A temporary licence expiring in six months is limited to an applicant licensed as a psychologist in another jurisdiction and in good standing, for reasons such as a court-ordered evaluation or services during a federally declared natural disaster; the board may expedite but not waive the requirements.

Licences renew biennially, on or before July 1 of alternate years, with continuing education documented at each renewal.

The requirement is 40 hours of continuing professional education for licensed psychologists and psychologist associates every two years, and 60 for conditional prescribing and unrestricted prescribing psychologists.

At least 15 of the 40 hours must be Category I, the most stringent presentation and monitoring category.

Within the total, topic minimums apply: two hours in cultural diversity or health disparities, four in equity and inclusion, and four in ethics every two years.

Prescribing psychologists must put 40 of their 60 hours into psychopharmacology or psychopharmacotherapy.

The review of New Mexico's psychologist rules located no 2023–2026 amendments; the latest changes it dates are effective February 10, 2022, reaching the supervised-experience rule, the CE rule and the associate conditions of practice.

Two saved rule texts carry later amendment markers: 16.22.5.8, the applications rule containing the nationwide criminal background screening, was amended effective January 8, 2023, and 16.22.25.8, the prescription certificate application rule, was amended effective October 8, 2024.

What those amendments changed is not stated in the sources read, which record the history lines but not the substance.