Psychotherapy Notes - Advances in the mental health professions

2021 Changes to the California MFT Clinical Exam

March 25, 2021December 30, 2020 by Ben Caldwell

Matthew Henry / Burst / Used under license Starting January 1, 2021, there are meaningful changes to the California MFT Clinical Exam, set forth in the new BBS Exam Plan. At Ben Caldwell Labs, we’re adding some video segments to our online prep program to address some new content areas. However, the most notable changes are in the balance of content on the exam.

Compare the old breakdown of question topics to the new one:

Prologue: A poem for new grad students

August 24, 2020August 24, 2020 by Ben Caldwell

Brodie Vissers / Burst / Used under license I wrote this poem several years ago, and republish it each fall as a welcome to students beginning their graduate studies in the mental health professions.

Every fall, the universities where I teach enroll dozens of new students into our family therapy programs. Our new students tend to be immensely talented, and many of them (as at any school) are also immensely anxious as they begin their journey.

How coronavirus is affecting the California BBS [Updated 6/2/20]

June 3, 2020March 16, 2020 by Ben Caldwell

I’ve gotten a lot of questions in the past few days about how COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) is affecting the California BBS, or how it is likely to. I’m rounding up those questions here in hopes of making it easier to find the information you need. This post most recently updated on June 2, to include information about new BBS waivers.

Exams

Will license exams be cancelled or postponed?

The BBS-contracted testing provider Pearson VUE closed all of its US and Canada testing centers in March, and has been gradually reopening them since May. All exams scheduled while centers were closed have been cancelled and you will need to reschedule.

If your registration expired or is scheduled to expire between March 31 and June 30, 2020, see the information below on Law & Ethics Exam rule waivers.

Is therapy more effective when people pay a fee for it?

February 4, 2020February 4, 2020 by Ben Caldwell

Matthew Henry / Burst / Used under license

The idea that clients should pay at least a small fee for therapy in order for therapy to be effective has been around for a long time. But it doesn’t hold up as well as you might think.

This is one of those things that I learned in grad school and simply accepted as truth for a long time. And then I was startled when I actually looked into it. Not only does forcing clients to pay even a small amount for therapy not help outcomes, some evidence suggests it makes outcomes worse.

California’s AB5 signed. How will it impact therapists’ work as independent contractors?

September 29, 2019September 29, 2019 by Ben Caldwell

Despite what you may have heard, the passage of AB5 will not cause the sky to fall.

California’s independent contractor bill, Assembly Bill 5, was described in media reports as an effort to regulate the gig economy, more specifically Uber and Lyft drivers. It actually impacts many, many more workers than that. But it doesn’t change anything for master’s-level mental health professionals in the state. The change that matters for us happened more than a year ago, and most employers have already adapted to it.

Some great new therapy podcasts

July 26, 2019July 26, 2019 by Ben Caldwell

Headphones - Anna Langova / Publicdomainpictures.net A while back, I posted on some of our favorite therapy podcasts. We’ve also celebrated our friends at the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide releasing their 100th episode. Since then, there’s been an explosion in the number of therapy podcasts available. This is unabashedly good — no matter what element of the therapy process you’re interested in, no matter what problems or populations you serve, odds are there’s now a podcast out there for you.

Why the Kaiser mental health strike matters

June 3, 2019June 3, 2019 by Ben Caldwell

Thousands of California mental health professionals working for Kaiser plan to begin an open-ended strike on June 11. They are protesting the company’s ongoing failure to staff up their mental health operations, resulting in Kaiser patients waiting several weeks between appointments. More than 700 stories of the human impacts of these wait times can be found at kaiserdontdeny.com.

I initially posted about Kaiser’s mental health labor force struggles late last year, when therapists staged a five-day walkout. Kaiser has told its workforce that they believe progress has been made since then on a new contract, but Kaiser’s NUHW workers have been working without a contract since September, and are clearly tired of waiting. The dispute hasn’t fundamentally changed since the December walkout. In April, NUHW workers staged a one-day work stoppage in Pasadena.

My original post, published December 12, 2018, follows:

On Monday, roughly 4,000 mental health professionals employed by Kaiser Permanente in California began a planned five-day strike. The therapists (and nurses, who also walked out in solidarity) say they are protesting the massive and continued failure on Kaiser’s part to provide adequate mental health care to its own patients.

This strike is, in some ways, like other strikes you’ve heard about. While the therapists are highlighting client care issues, Kaiser itself notes that those therapists also are demanding better pay and working conditions — common demands to strike over. But this strike is also deeply unusual in the mental health world. Even when therapists are in a union, strikes are very rare. For that reason, this strike is uniquely important.

California’s 90-day rule for MFTs: An explainer

May 30, 2019May 30, 2019 by Ben Caldwell

BBS logo The time period between completing a graduate degree and obtaining an MFT Associate registration number can feel like a strange state of limbo. You’re no longer a trainee, but you’re not yet a registered associate either. Thankfully, hours of supervised experience gained in that time can still count toward licensure — if you fall within the 90-day rule. What is the 90-day rule, and why does it matter so much?