Psychologist Licensure in West Virginia: Degree, Supervised Hours and the EPPP

The statute speaks of a single license to engage in the practice of psychology, and it is the same licence whether the applicant holds the doctorate or the master's: § 30-21-7(a)(3) admits a doctor of philosophy degree or its equivalent or a master's degree in psychology.

Before that licence comes the Supervised-Psychologist status — the board's 'Gold Card' supervisee approval — which the requirement sheets treat as the working stage for both routes.

The school psychology track is separate: § 30-21-2(m)-(o) define the school psychologist resident and the licensed school psychologist, who work on school-board property, and the licensed school psychologist independent practitioner, whose route § 30-21-7c sets.

Section 30-21-2(e) defines the practice of psychology broadly — psychotherapy, interviewing and counseling, and the constructing, administering and interpreting of tests, rendered for compensation — so the licence is the working credential for clinical roles.

The statute admits a doctor of philosophy degree or its equivalent, or a master's degree in psychology, from an accredited institution of higher learning, with course study the board judges adequate.

The board's sheets add shape without naming APA accreditation: doctoral applicants need a Ph.D., Psy.D. or Ed.D. in a clinical form of psychology, and master's applicants need an MA or MS in clinical psychology or counseling psychology carrying at least 50 graduate hours of psychology coursework.

Both routes require the degree to sit in a psychology, educational-psychology or similarly designated department, and both list the six regional accrediting agencies the institution must hold.

Core coursework named on both sheets runs from clinical interviewing, diagnosis and psychopathology to tests and measures.

Alongside the degree, the statute's baseline eligibility items apply: the applicant must be at least eighteen years of age, be of good moral character, and not have been convicted of a felony or crime involving moral turpitude (§ 30-21-7(a)(1), (2), (6)).

The statute fixes the doctoral floor inside the degree: when the applicant holds a doctor of philosophy degree or its equivalent, at least 1,800 of the qualifying hours must be a predoctoral internship.

The board's sheets then branch on the internship itself.

A candidate whose pre-doctoral internship meets the 1,800 hours becomes eligible for the oral exam once the EPPP is passed, quarterly reports are filed and oral materials are submitted.

One year of supervision applies where the internship was pre- or post-doctoral and APA-approved or arranged through a program of study, and two years of supervised practice apply where no internship was completed; the sheets set the supervised years before the oral as full-time work, with the required number of face-to-face supervision hours.

There is no universal postdoctoral year — and note the wording trap: the board's licence-information page calls it an '1,800 hour post doctoral internship', but the statute says predoctoral, and the statute controls.

Practicum hours are not named in the materials read; confirm with the board how your internship is classified before relying on a branch.

Doctoral candidates must pass the EPPP with a score of 500 or greater, within 2 years and in no more than 5 attempts under the board's sheets.

For Supervised-Psychologists, the sheets attach the consequence: those who fail to pass within the designated periods will no longer be eligible for licensure, and must cease all psychological practice and stop using the title.

The statute adds an eligibility bar: an applicant may not have taken and failed the examination within the preceding six months.

The exam routes end at the oral examination, which the board describes as a meeting with the Board or its committee to determine readiness for licensure.

No requirement for EPPP Part 2 (Skills) was found in the materials read.

That question is time-limited: ASPPB's integrated EPPP replaces the two-part exam for first-time takers from fall 2027 and is the only version from April 1, 2028, and the West Virginia materials read had not been amended for it.

Supervision in West Virginia is not a paperwork relationship — the sheets require it to occur in the state, under a board-approved supervisor, with the Supervised-Psychologist employed as a W-2 employee.

Once approved, the applicant receives the Gold Card naming their approved supervisors; it expires and renews annually with a renewal form, CE certificates, the CE Audit Form and a fee.

Supervised-Psychologists file quarterly reports covering face-to-face supervision hours and psychology work hours, and complete 10 CE hours per full year, 1.5 of them in ethics, to keep the card.

The oral-exam gate is set in the same terms: the sheets require the years of full-time supervised work plus the required number of face-to-face supervision hours before a supervised psychologist sits for the oral.

Every Supervised-Psychologist must sit the EPPP at least once during the first 12 months of status.

The exact number of supervision hours required per year was not located in the sources read.

A master's-level applicant completes five years of full-time supervised work, plus the required number of face-to-face supervision hours, as a Supervised-Psychologist before licensure — the sheet's reading of § 30-21-7(a)(4)'s five years' experience subsequent to receiving the degree.

The board's 2026 sheet builds the route out: the degree must be in clinical psychology or counseling psychology with 50 graduate hours of psychology; the EPPP must be passed within 5 years, attempted at least once per year and no more than five times, and a candidate who fails to pass within the designated periods is no longer eligible for licensure and must cease practice; and the route ends at the oral exam, upon which a WV psychology license is issued.

The licence is the same one the statute describes, and no post-licensure supervision requirement was found.

The materials read set no per-year supervision-hour minimum for these supervisees, and no prescriptive authority exists at either level.

West Virginia's PSYPACT status comes from the PSYPACT Commission map, the aggregate the research file relies on for enactment dates: the map, as read in September 2026, lists West Virginia as a member in effect, with SB 668 enacted April 21, 2021 and effective November 18, 2021.

The sections of the psychology statute read do not mention PSYPACT.

PSYPACT's own rule defines the qualifying graduate degree as a doctoral degree, so a master's-level West Virginia licensee cannot practise under it — a real limit in a state that licenses at both degree levels.

A doctoral West Virginia psychologist uses PSYPACT to practise telepsychology or work temporarily in person in another participating state, through ASPPB's E.Passport or Interjurisdictional Practice Certificate plus the matching PSYPACT authorization.

The statute waives the examination for two groups: an applicant who holds a doctor of philosophy degree or its equivalent from an institution of higher learning, with adequate course study at that institution in psychology, and who is a diplomate of the American Board of Examiners in Professional Psychology; and any person holding a psychology license or certificate from another state whose requirements the board finds at least as great as West Virginia's.

The board's licence-information page frames this as its reciprocity process for psychologists and school psychologists licensed elsewhere, and the supervisee page shows where the reciprocity route lands: the oral examination is the meeting that decides whether a reciprocity candidate is ready for licensure.

Nothing read applies that oral to the ABPP-diplomate route, so confirm with the board what your route requires beyond the file review.

The psychology licence is valid for two years and renewable without examination; the school psychologist licence runs three years.

Continuing education sits on top: 20 CE hours every 2 years, of which 10 must come from APA or NASP-approved providers and 3 must be in ethics.

Since January 1, 2017, 2 of the 20 hours must address mental health conditions common to veterans and their family members, covering suicide-risk screening, posttraumatic stress and related conditions.

Dually licensed psychologists add 3 CE hours per renewal period in their secondary area of practice, counted within the same requirements.

Supervised-Psychologists renewing a Gold Card complete 10 hours per year with 1.5 in ethics.

The board's CE guidelines also let graduate coursework and professional presentations count toward the total within stated caps.

The change of record is the online-degree gate: from May 4, 2026, both online and on-campus master's degrees qualify for licensure, per the board's 2026 requirements sheet and its licence-information page, which both date the change.

Online degrees must still be in clinical psychology or counseling psychology, carry the 50 graduate hours, and meet the sheet's coursework and accreditation lines; practicums and internships must be in person and face to face.

The legislative rule behind the change, 17CSR3, was not among the sources read, so the change is stated here as the board states it.

The board's working site is psychbd.wv.gov, where the licence-information, supervision and continuing-education pages read for this page live, and its license search is the board's own lookup.

An older domain, wvbep.org, now serves unrelated workforce content, so search results pointing there should not be trusted.

The requirement sheets are dated — doctoral with supervision 2023, doctoral without supervision 2018, master's 2026 — so confirm you are reading the current sheet before you plan your hours around it.