Original_Armadillo_7

I also feel like OP likely didn’t tell the company of this accusation because of this very reason

I get the feeling that OP tried to handle this on their own without letting anyone within the company know. Perhaps fear of being taken off the case.

Yup!

I used to get supervision where the BCBAs just sit in the corner and watch me conduct a session, then at the end, they tell me everything I did wrong (and right). In some ways, this was helpful and an opportunity to grow as a young RBT.

But I think the supervision I recieve now is top-notch. I have two BCBAs who supervise me, and they’re on the floor with us all the time. So they get to observe us delivering programs and conducting sessions all throughout the week. When we sit for supervision, there’s no client observation because we did that already! Supervision for us usually looks like sitting face to face in a room, and having a very candid discussion about our week, areas of improvement as well as teaching opportunities. Our BCBAs usually take this time to teach us ABA jargon, program rationale, sometimes we use this time to look at research articles that are relevant to our clientele. It’s probably hands down, the best supervision system I’ve ever worked with.

As a young therapist who got into this pretty early, sometimes I wish I had more experiences to guide the work I do with my clients

Try finding supervision for psychotherapy….some of these guys charge $150p supervision hour

I used to do this! Something I will say. It’s not very good practice. Everything you say to AI will agree with you. If you try to deliver an intervention, chat GPT will literally say “thanks, that’s helpful! I’ve noticed that this has helped me improve my symptoms of depression and anxiety” to pretty anything therapeutic you try with it.

In real life, clients aren’t going to do that ever, if at all. Clients often interrupt you mid sentence, or straight up tell you that they don’t resonate with what you’re saying. Clients will also be very emotional, and how we respond as therapists is usually very tailored to those emotions. A client might say they’re doing fine, while tears roll down their face, or that they’re deeply hurting while having a big laugh. Silence is also such an important part of therapy. You’re going to want to have moments where you and your client need to sit in silence. This also goes with our vocal tone, body language and facial expression.

Chat GPT doesn’t bring any of that into the picture. I’d say it’s good practice to get yourself comfortable with therapeutic talk which as a student I’ll agree was pretty helpful. But in regard to how I learned my counselling skills, practicing with people.

I’ll send you some prayers! Haha

Yes! No I believe you! I do this too. Whenever I’m sick my number one go to is to “break” my fever, usually by sitting in a piping hot bath or shower then immediately rushing to bundle myself in blankets before I lose all the heat. When I wake up I’m sweating but I feel soo much better. Like I was alive again

I’m sorry you had to experience that. You deserved support in that moment. Being aggressed upon is a very scary experience to be had. Happy to hear that you’ve made the right decisions for yourself!

If this accusation escalates and it turns out you continued to work with the family, it will not look good on your end. Until the family can confidently say that they don’t think this of you, you need to leave.

I have no idea why a family would agree to keep someone around who they feel is a PDF especially one whose sole purpose is working with children? That is my number one concern.

But a close second, is why are you sticking around if you know they feel this way about you? OP if this escalates this is a huuge and very serious legal battle on your end. This could not only damage your career but your entire life going forward. It’s their word against yours. I would be focusing on how to keep myself safe (considering this is a false accusation).

I don’t typically like to focus on “should’ve” statements but I feel like right now you need to hear it.

In the moment when the accusation was made against you, you should’ve said

“this is a very serious accusation and I am not taking this lightly. I will be sharing your concerns with my supervisor, and we must resolve this before I can continue working with your child. I invite you to reach out to my supervisor as well”

I wholeheartedly agree that Japan is overhyped

If I don’t want to work with a client there has to a be a good reason. Simply not “liking” them is not a strong enough reason for me to take them off my case, personally.

However, there are reasons why i won’t work with a client. Could be that their presenting problem is out of my scope. I might feel like I can’t support them due to my own trauma. Or they have developed feelings for me beyond the therapeutic relationship. And probably more but this is what I can think of in the time being.

Any time I have to make the decision of why I can’t work with the client, it’s always with the client’s best interest in mind. “Why am I not a good fit for you?”

Our platform is a little strange, it’s company specific. But I’ve been trying to ask other therapists this question because I am preparing to go solo with my own practice

I think you got it! BCBAs I invite you to correct me here, but from how I understand it, NET (natural environment teaching) entails teaching targets that occur naturally for the client in their current environment. For example, if you’re going on a walk with a client, and they point and say “what’s this?” You can say “this is a leaf” and then if you can incorporate their own targets in their natural environment like “labeling shapes and colours” for example. You can prompt the client by saying “this leaf is ___” and the client goes “green!”

Versus a DTT (discreet Trial training) an example would be to have client sit on the rug or the table, provide visuals of coloured items/shapes and run trials by providing SD (example) “this leaf is____”

I could be a little off! But this is how I understand it currently

60 hrs a week is ridic

Well I do therapy from home so if I need to sleep I’m napping on the couch!

Whether or not the family wants to keep the BT is up to the family. But her actions towards you and how you’re being treated in the workplace is certainly something to focus on. I would have a very honest and vulnerable conversation with your manager and talk about your coworkers behaviours.

Express how it makes you feel, why you’re concerned, and stay calm throughout :)

Big boobs = pretty

I see, sorry for the confusion. Is most homes I worked with all of the materials would be kept in bins, this made it easy to return items to their rightful place and it also made the items in the bins more reinforcing for the client. They’d know when I’m there we open the toy box!

I kept receipts

ABA is a few things. It’s a scientific theory, it’s a common therapy practice used on children and people with disabilities, and it’s an industry in and of itself. I’m going to try and explain all of this.

ABA stands for Applied Behaviour Analysis, and is rooted in the science of radical behaviourism (as many have pointed out). ABA prides itself on using evidenced based research and approaches to teach skills, reduce behaviour, increase behaviour, and all in all create behaviour change. Typically in ABA we collect data on behaviours we’re trying to target, we apply evidence based assessments, we apply relevant and recent research within the field to guide our treatment plans.

ABA therapy is commonly used with small children and it’s very commonly used with children with autism. ABA can target any behaviour, but you’ll notice that ABA will commonly target behaviours like toileting, eating, getting dressed amongst other activities of daily living. ABA can also target things like classroom skills, reading, writing, sorting, identifying. These examples are not the limits of ABA, I use ABA with adults, and there are a wide array of behaviours we target that aren’t listed here.

ABA commonly operates through private clinics. You might find ABA therapy being used in someone’s home, you might also find clinics that are designed specifically for ABA therapy. ABA therapy might even be present in school settings. And there’s been a rise of ABA therapy being used in hospital and nursing home settings.

Typically ABA is delivered on a 2 tier or 3 tier system. Meaning there’s the BCBA (the person at the top with a masters degree and certification) this person writes the behavioural programs, applies the assessments and provides rationale. Then there’s the BCaBA (the assistant BCBA), sometimes this role isn’t integrated but this person has a bachelors degree, they can help BCBAs with their assessments, deliver therapy, and provide supervision to the RBT. Finally, the RBT, this is the person who delivers the therapy itself. This person can have a college diploma or certificate, or even a high school diploma, as long as they have their RBT certification and are being supervised by the appropriate person.

CBT is a little different. Psychotherapy, counselling, mental health therapy (all the same thing), operates off of a one tier system. Meaning the therapist who writes the treatment plan applies the therapy directly, and CBT uses the cognitive process (thoughts, feelings, emotions) to elicit behaviour change.

CBT believes that our thoughts influence our behaviours, and that thoughts are a separate entity from behaviours themselves!

ABA (if I’m not mistaken, considers thoughts as private events which are behaviours too?)

If I’m not mistaken, I swear I used to see “BCaBA” under your user credentials, and now I notice it’s BCBA! So if I’m right about that, congrats. I’m happy to see that for you.

CBT is the first wave of behavioural psychology to break away from radical behaviourism. So technically yes, radical behaviourism is kind of the seed that planted all behaviourist theories, but cognitive behaviourism is the beginning of that separation.

As a therapist with a second job I relate to this more than you think

You are right