04/10/2026
Welp, passed the LCSW (Licensed Clinical Social Worker) exam this morning—but I’m not gonna romanticize it.
This road was 3,000 hours, supervision, lot of doubt, showing up when I didn’t want to, leaving multiple jobs to find what I wanted to do, and struggling with imposter syndrome EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.
This awful, bulls**t test? 170 multiple-choice questions and a $300 price tag that the NASW tries to stamp “competent” or “not” on you as a social worker/therapist. Cool. Great job ya bums.
Nope. That doesn’t define anything here. Can’t pretend it does.
Why, Craig? Oh, let me tell you. Not everyone even gets the shot to sit for this test and there are clinicians out there doing life-changing work every day without those letters, and experience pay stagnation because of it, which is bananas. Solid people, whom I know personally.
The other side is there ARE people with those letters, and do a disservice to the field and clients. Can’t ignore that.
I didn’t chase this because I thought it would make me better—I did it to prove to myself I could, being so late to the field of social work and therapy, knowing the whole time it doesn’t define me, my work, or what the community is building here at Inner Peace.
Huge love to my wife and Liana for grinding through the studying with me, and to everyone at Bridgeway in Sussex—you were instrumental in this process and that group will always have a place in my heart as well as top notch clinicians in that organization. Call it a box, call it a gate, call it whatever—but if checking it means more access, more reach, and more room to build something real here at Inner Peace, then I’ll take that, and keep that s**t moving.
Lastly: If you are taking this test and either passed/failed, or if you don’t get the opportunity to sit for it, this does NOT define you as a person, as a therapist, or as a social worker. AT. ALL. This was a one and done for me. They weren’t getting any more of my money, especially what the field pays us.
