Education Archives - Page 8 of 11

Prove yourself: Accountability is changing mental health care

August 28, 2017 by Ben Caldwell

We can’t say we didn’t see this coming. In the first edition of The Heart and Soul of Change: What Works in Therapy, published in 1999, authors Mark Hubble, Barry Duncan, and Scott Miller predicted that psychotherapists would soon be facing a new era of accountability for their work. Clients, payors, and policymakers would all demand hard evidence that psychotherapy was effective. That era is well underway, and so far we have provided a wealth of the kind of information these parties have demanded.

We can demonstrate that therapy works as an overall conclusion, and within the contexts of specific problems and populations. Proving the effectiveness of specific models has been helpful in many ways (showing that model-based treatment is superior to no treatment) and enlightening in others (showing that, for most problems, the model of therapy has little to no impact on outcome). The brain research discussed by Siegel, Cozolino, and others explains why therapy works. Psychotherapy in general is being held accountable, and it is passing the test with flying colors.

The same cannot be said of specific therapists, or of therapy training programs – yet.

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.

Two new interviews

September 14, 2016 by Ben Caldwell

I’m presenting at the Networking Luncheon at this week’s AAMFT Annual Conference in Indianapolis. (Come see!) The topic of the presentation will be the big picture of what’s happening in the field of psychotherapy: Fewer people are coming for services, they’re paying less for them, and our salaries as professionals are dropping relative to inflation. I’ll be talking about what individual practitioners can do to turn the ship. With the steps I outline in the book Saving Psychotherapy (and in next week’s talk), you can improve your own practice while helping the field as a whole. If you’d like a brief taste of what I’ll be talking about next week, I’ve recently done a couple of interviews you might like.

See me at the 2016 AAMFT Annual Conference

September 7, 2016September 7, 2016 by Ben Caldwell

I’ll be presenting multiple times at this year’s AAMFT Annual Conference in Indianapolis. Come see me at any of the following:

Networking Luncheon

Friday, 12:30p-2:00p
Benjamin Caldwell

We have decades of data proving that psychotherapy works. But data also shows that spending on therapy is rapidly declining — fewer people are coming — as training costs and requirements increase. MFTs at all career levels are impacted by these trends, which are already pushing some well-qualified therapists out of the field. Ben Caldwell hosts this fast-paced, data-driven, and ultimately optimistic presentation that will outline the specific steps MFTs can take on an individual basis to improve their own practices, while saving our field from becoming one by and for the wealthy.