Ben Caldwell, Author at Psychotherapy Notes

MFT license portability

July 25, 2017 by Ben Caldwell

By Mk2010 (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons Ah, to be a medical doctor. To only have to pass the boards once, and then be done with it. MFT license portability isn’t so easy.

Marriage and family therapists — who, at least in theory, practice the same profession no matter where they roam — are subject to a mishmash of licensure laws around the 50 states, with similar-but-different requirements for education, experience, and examinations. Taking your MFT license to a new state can be a challenge, as you may be forced to provide transcripts and even syllabi from classes taken decades ago, register as an intern or associate even if you’ve been fully licensed, and in some states, go through another testing process.

Responding to a Yelp review can cost you

July 18, 2017 by Ben Caldwell

Woman using mobile app / Burst via Creative Commons Zero license Sites like Yelp, HealthGrades, and Angie’s List present problems for mental health professionals. We typically cannot solicit testimonials from clients, so most clients do not write reviews. When someone does, though, any response risks breaching confidentiality. So therapists usually stay away from review sites. But that leaves us with little recourse in the event that an online review is harsh, incorrect, or even fake.

These concerns are not merely theoretical. In a 2015 disciplinary case out of California, a therapist attempted to defend himself against what he considered false accusations in a Yelp review from an angry client. The therapist responded to the review, but then changed his mind, and took the response down. By the therapist’s report — and there is no evidence that either the client or the licensing board disputes this — his response to the client was online for no more than three to five minutes.

Essential resources for prelicensed therapists

March 7, 2018July 10, 2017 by Ben Caldwell

Prelicensed therapists and counselors face a difficult road. Getting to licensure is a long and expensive process, so much so that even many well-qualified people drop out.

All of us here at Psychotherapy Notes want to make your path to licensure a little easier. So we’ve collected resources here that can help you along the way. You may already be familiar with some, but hopefully some are new and useful to you. Here are some essential resources for prelicensed therapists.

What to do if you were affected by the TherapyNotes outage

July 6, 2017July 5, 2017 by Ben Caldwell

Matthew Henry / Burst / Licensed under Creative Commons Zero Many therapists and counselors maintain their electronic health records through the site TherapyNotes. (TherapyNotes and this blog are unrelated.) Last week, TherapyNotes was down for several days following the discovery of a ransomware virus on one of their servers. [Update 7/6: They’ve put that link behind a login wall. Here’s a cached version.] If you use TherapyNotes for your records, you may be wondering what to do now.