Every link below was checked on 9 September 2026. If one of them has gone dead, telling us is genuinely useful — a broken link on a page like this costs someone at a low ebb an afternoon.
If you need someone now
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline
Call or text 988, any time, free. You do not have to be suicidal to use it — it is for any mental health crisis, including on behalf of someone else.
SAMHSA National Helpline
1-800-662-4357. Free, confidential, 24/7, in English and Spanish. Treatment referral and information for mental health and substance use.
FindTreatment.gov
The federal treatment locator. Useful for finding licensed facilities, and for confirming that somewhere you found elsewhere is real.
Find a Health Center (HRSA)
Federally Qualified Health Centers must run an income-based sliding scale, and can be free at or below the federal poverty level. The least-known low-cost route there is.
For this subject specifically
Board of Behavioral Sciences — applicants
The Board’s own pages for LMFT, LPCC and LCSW applicants, with forms and handbooks.
CAMFT
California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists: legal and ethics consultation for members.
NASW California
The California chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.
CALPCC
California Association for Licensed Professional Clinical Counselors.
Why we link away
Most directories are built to keep you on them. That is the wrong instinct for a subject where the useful thing is often somewhere else — a professional body’s own therapist finder, a helpline, a federal locator. None of these organisations paid to be here and none of them know we exist.