Ben Caldwell, Author at Psychotherapy Notes

Study: Therapists whose licenses were revoked just kept practicing, as “coaches”

May 2, 2016April 5, 2016 by Ben Caldwell

A new study of family therapists who had been disciplined by their state licensure boards showed that every one of the five who had their licenses revoked was still working with clients or planning to do so. None of them appeared to have learned much from their experience.

Five wrong things therapists say about law & ethics

March 7, 2018March 29, 2016 by Ben Caldwell

I am part of several online groups for psychotherapists, on Facebook and elsewhere. We talk about ethics, about theories, and sometimes about cases (without identifying details, of course, to protect confidentiality). Most of the time, when people say something that isn’t right, the collective wisdom of the group corrects the error. That’s one of many positives of social media: It allows professionals all over the world to share information and hold each other to high standards of knowledge and behavior.

Sometimes, though, a myth or misstatement is so common that the collective doesn’t effectively stop it. Here are the five misstatements about legal and ethical issues that I see most often from therapists.

Proposed Massachusetts law would give therapists collective bargaining

May 5, 2016March 8, 2016 by Ben Caldwell

The so-called “gig economy” — best exemplified by ride-sharing companies like Uber and Lyft — has brought political attention to the plight of workers who are hired as independent contractors rather than employees. As independent contractors, these workers typically have no ability to engage in collective bargaining, often receive little or no benefits, and have limited workplace protections. The attention they are receiving might end up helping therapists and counselors who take insurance — or who would, if the pay and benefits were better. It could also help clients by improving accessibility of care.

How this year’s religious freedom bills would impact therapists

February 23, 2016 by Ben Caldwell

Golden gavel 1, By walknboston (Flickr: Gavel) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons Several states are considering religious freedom bills that would directly impact therapist training and licensure, and clients’ ability to access appropriate mental health care.

As has been the trend for several years now, these bills — also commonly referred to as “conscience clause” legislation — are being framed as protection of the rights of religious people to act in accordance with their moral or religious beliefs, free from government interference. The bills tend to be broadly written, though there have been at least a few instances of bills being written specifically to apply to mental health (including one this year — see discussion of Tennessee below).

Psychotherapy’s dirty little secrets

February 27, 2016February 8, 2016 by Ben Caldwell

As tremendously effective as psychotherapy is, and as much as we try to help out students and new professionals, there are some things about working in this field that we don’t eagerly share. It’s not that we don’t want you to know, necessarily, it’s just… these things don’t look so good.

Here are three secrets we keep about the world of therapy. Each one is true, even if we don’t talk about them much.