NCE Content Update Effective March 2020. Many clinicians in the mental health field go on to become Licensed Professional Clinical Counselors (LPCCs) or National Certified Counselors (NCCs). To achieve either of these distinctions, along with completing a relevant master’s degree and obtaining work experience with clinical supervision in the field, candidates need to pass the National Counselor Examination (NCE).
The National Counselor Exam (NCE) is a rite of passage in the field of behavioral health. You completed your master’s degree and are working in the clinical field but, there is another hurdle to cross before you can obtain your license.
Failing the counseling exam is an abiding fear looming over would-be counselors pursuing their Masters degree and then their internship work. There’s a reason for this fear, seeing that 40-45% of people taking the National Clinical Mental Health Counseling Examination (NCMHCE) fail. But could failing the NCMHCE or the NCE ever be a good thing? In an article for Counseling Today, Alyson Carr shares that her experience failing the counseling exam turned out to be positive because of the lessons she learned from it
