Alachua County Florida is blessed with a very active mental health community.  A variety of professionals work in the mental health field: Licensed Psychologists, Psychiatrists, Licensed Mental Helath Counselors, Licensed Marital and Family Therapists, Licensed Clinical Social Workers, Psychiatric Nurses and Advanced Registered Nurse Practioners.

Beware of individuals using different titles such as coaches, advisors, consultants, etc. These are often clever or not so clever ways to avoid licensing laws.  Also note that all people with Ph.D.'s are not psychologists. Florida law now requires that it be clear what credentials or license people have when they treat you.  The Florida Dept. of Health Website has an easy way to determine if an individual is licensed by the state.

Another common ploy of unlicensed individuals is to call psychological or neuropsychological evaluations by another name such as an "assessment", consult, personality evaluation etc.  Only licensed psychologists are allowed by Florida law to refer to their evaluations by the term psychological or any permutation of that.  This is because generally this requires formal training in test construction, theory and supervised experience in interpretation.  Tests such as attention tests, ability tests and personality tests are all used to make serious judgments about you.  Be sure a licensed psychologist is performing any psychological testing. 

We have seen many non-psychologist practices give the PAI or MMPI-2 because computer interpretation is available.  Florida Board of Psychology rules are clear that interpretations should not be solely computer-based and should be individualized to the individual.  Seek the higher standard and protect yourself, insist that your psychological testing be conducted by a real licensed psychologist and not an off-the shelf computer program.  This is even more important when evaluations are being conducted such as forensic neuropsychological or forensic psychological assessments.