Common mistakes when dealing with the BBS

Alice Achterhof / UnsplashThe California Board of Behavioral Sciences (BBS) tends to elicit negative responses from MFT registered interns, trainees, and students, and probably for good reason. The “horror stories” relating to therapists’ experiences with the BBS seem endless at times, and unfortunately, these stories can contribute to feelings of stress that are already being experienced by aspiring marriage and family therapists. Avoiding these five common mistakes can help reduce those feelings of stress when dealing with the BBS.

[Ed. note: This is a guest post written by our friend Robin Andersen, who runs the excellent resource Prelicensed.com. More about Robin appears at the end of this post. For more great resources for prelicensed therapists, check out this article. -bc]

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Mental health groups respond to Trump military transgender ban

VoA / Public domainYesterday, President Donald Trump announced a ban on people who identify as transgender serving in the US military. US mental health professional associations swiftly challenged the ban. The associations cite research supporting the inclusion of transgender men and women. For example, a 2016 RAND Corporation study showed that inclusion of transgender servicemembers would have little to no impact on costs or combat readiness.

The major US mental health associations issued the following statements in regard to the ban.

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MFT license portability

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 CommonsAh, 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.

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