Ben Caldwell, Author at Psychotherapy Notes

Applying for disability accommodations on licensing exams

June 15, 2017 by Ben Caldwell

If you have a recognized disability, you can apply for a quiet room, additional time, or other appropriate accommodations for your licensing exam. Exact rules, and the process for applying, will vary by state. But every state has to make reasonable accommodations in the exam process under federal law.

Though there is little hard data, I’ve heard from multiple people who work for state licensing boards around the country that requests for disability accommodations are becoming more common in license exams for psychologists, counselors, social workers, and family therapists.

New Mexico, Nevada, Connecticut ban conversion therapy for minors

May 31, 2017 by Ben Caldwell

Ryan McGuire - Licensed under Creative Commons Zero Earlier this month, the governors of Nevada and Connecticut signed laws banning conversion therapy for minors in those states. These follow the signing of a similar law in New Mexico in April. According to the National Center for Lesbian Rights, nine states now ban the practice. The District of Columbia and cities including Seattle, Cincinnati, and several in Florida have enacted similar bans.

If you are not familiar with the practice, conversion therapy (also sometimes known as reparative therapy) involves efforts to change someone’s sexual orientation. The American Psychological Association and other professional mental health groups have strongly disavowed the practice. They note that there is no evidence that the treatment is generally effective, but there is evidence of harm that it can cause.

Lawsuit accuses APA of defamation over torture report

May 16, 2017 by Ben Caldwell

A 2015 report commissioned by the American Psychological Association determined that the organization colluded with military and CIA officials to allow psychologists to participate in torture of military detainees. Five people named in that report have now sued the APA and the report’s author, David Hoffman. (The report is widely known and referenced as the Hoffman Report.) The lawsuit alleges that Hoffman worked with longtime APA critics to create a one-sided and often inaccurate telling of how the APA interacted with military and intelligence officials. This report then allowed the APA to use the five as scapegoats, they say, in some cases ending their careers.

The Hoffman Report, and the APA’s responses to it, are collected here. The lawsuit can be read here. They present vastly different perspectives on the events Hoffman and his team investigated.

Agencies are now charging trainees to work there, too [Updated]

May 18, 2017May 12, 2017 by Ben Caldwell

currency If you’ve been around this blog a while, you’ve heard me rail against unpaid internships that are often illegal. I’ve encouraged anyone who has been through such an internship to fight for their rights — including back wages. I’ve also argued that the “intern” title is part of the problem, and thankfully, it’s changing to “Associate” for California MFTs and PCCs in 2018. But interns aren’t alone in troubling and potentially exploitive work settings.

Around Los Angeles, it is increasingly common for agencies to charge significant fees to trainees — students in graduate school, doing the clinical hours they need to graduate — for the privilege of working for free.

What’s going on with California’s MFT Clinical Exam? [Updated]

May 8, 2017May 8, 2017 by Ben Caldwell

It is certainly debatable what an ideal pass rate for licensing exams should be. If the pass rate is high, that means almost everyone gets through. Then the tests don’t serve a meaningful function. (That’s pretty much the status quo.) If the pass rate is low, it raises questions about the validity of the exam, given how much time most examinees spend preparing for it. But what makes a pass rate too high or too low? Given that the exams don’t do much of anything anyway, it’s hard to say for sure.

But it does raise eyebrows when pass rates for a single exam fall off a cliff, as seems to have happened for California MFTs over the past year.