For 50 years, the AMHCA Annual Conference has brought clinical mental health counselors together to learn, connect, share ideas, and advance the profession.
As part of our 50th Anniversary celebration, we're opening the archives and asking members to help us tell the story of AMHCA through the people, places, and experiences they remember.
Where We've Gathered
Our current conference archives provide a detailed look at the past 20 conference years, beginning with New Orleans in 2007 and continuing through our 50th Anniversary celebration in Portland in 2026.
During that time, AMHCA has traveled from coast to coast. We've gathered in San Diego and San Francisco in the West; Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC in the East; Orlando and New Orleans in the South; and many places in between.
Some cities have even welcomed us back more than once. Washington, DC, hosted the conference in 2009, 2013, and 2017 (Herndon, outside the city, in 2019), while New Orleans welcomed AMHCA in 2007, 2016, and 2023. Orlando hosted in 2012 and 2018, and Las Vegas in 2022 and 2025.
Our members definitely have favorites. In our 50th Anniversary survey, members have already named Washington, DC and Charlotte among their favorite AMHCA conference destinations.
GRAPHIC: Map of AMHCA conference locations, 2007–2026
The Story Begins Before Our Archives
Of course, AMHCA's conference history goes back much further than 2007.
That's where our members come in.
AMHCA Past President and Pioneer CCMHC, Edward S. Beck, recently shared that he attended the very first AMHCA conference in Jessup, Maryland. He also remembers New York City as his favorite conference destination, recalling AMHCA leadership sharing the Rockefeller Suite at the New York Hilton.
Memories like these capture something a list of dates and cities can't: the experiences and relationships that made each gathering special.
As we continue celebrating AMHCA's 50th Anniversary, we're asking past presidents, longtime members, volunteer leaders, and conference attendees to help us fill in those earlier chapters.
Conferences Through the Years
2007–2011: From New Orleans to San Francisco
Our current archive begins in New Orleans in 2007, followed by San Diego, Washington, DC, Boston, and San Francisco.
Looking back at photographs and conference materials from these years offers a glimpse not only at where AMHCA gathered, but at the profession at that moment in time—the topics counselors were discussing, the speakers taking the stage, and the colleagues coming together to learn from one another. Also, the technology…who remembers the “Cyber Café” where you could use a laptop computer to look something up, check your email, or print something?
COLLAGE: 2007–2011 conference photos
2012–2016: Orlando to New Orleans
Over the next five years, AMHCA traveled to Orlando, Washington, DC, Seattle, Philadelphia, and back to New Orleans.
While the locations changed, the purpose remained familiar: creating a space where clinical mental health counselors could learn together, exchange ideas, develop professionally, and strengthen relationships with colleagues from across the country.
COLLAGE: 2012–2016 Conference photos
2017–2021: Finding New Ways to Gather
AMHCA returned to Washington, DC in 2017, followed by Orlando in 2018 and Herndon, Virginia in 2019.
Then, in 2020, everything changed.
When gathering in person was no longer possible, AMHCA shifted its Annual Conference to a virtual format. For two years, the location wasn't a hotel; it was wherever our members happened to be.
Behind the scenes, that meant reimagining how AMHCA could deliver education and maintain connection during an unprecedented period. The format was different, but the goal remained the same: provide a place for the clinical mental health counseling community to come together.
COLLAGE: 2017-2021 Conference photos
2022–2026: Together Again
In 2022, AMHCA members gathered in person once again, this time in Las Vegas. New Orleans followed in 2023, Charlotte in 2024, a return to Las Vegas in 2025, and finally Portland in 2026 for our 50th Anniversary celebration.
After two years apart, these conferences offered something that couldn't quite be replicated through a screen: hallway conversations, shared meals, spontaneous introductions, reunions with old friends, and the energy of hundreds of counselors learning together in one place.
COLLAGE: 2022–2026 Conference photos
Portland gave us an opportunity not only to celebrate the present, but also to begin looking back at the generations of members, leaders, presenters, exhibitors, staff, and volunteers who have made the AMHCA Annual Conference what it is today.
More Than a Destination
Looking back through the years of the conference makes one thing clear: the city is only part of the story.
A conference destination becomes memorable because of what happens there: the presentation that changes someone's approach to their work, the first time a student presents their research, a conversation with a mentor, an introduction that becomes a friendship, or simply the experience of being surrounded by people who understand and share a commitment to the profession.
That's why, as we look back at 50 years, we don't just want to document where AMHCA has been. We want to remember what happened when we got there.
Help Us Fill in the Map
Our archives tell part of AMHCA's story. Our members hold another part.
Do you remember an AMHCA conference before 2007? Have an old conference program tucked away? A photograph with colleagues? A favorite keynote speaker? A story about how AMHCA influenced your career, or a memory that still makes you smile?
We want to hear it.
Throughout our 50th Anniversary celebration, we'll continue sharing stories from AMHCA's history, and your memories can help us preserve pieces of that history that might otherwise be lost.
Share Your AMHCA Story → https://forms.cloud.microsoft/r/aGfvBhBVkq
And stay tuned as we continue our journey through 50 years of AMHCA.