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A lot happened for our profession and our clients last week.
- Licensure Fees Reduced in CA
The CA Board of Behavioral Sciences is in the midst of finalizing a proposal that would cut license application fees and license renewal fees in half for the next 5 years.
This will reduce the burden on professionals who are often underpaid. This also reduces the burden on group and agency practices who cover this fee for a multiple clinicians every year.
If you are a CA licensee, and this would help you or your business, you can read over the proposal here and submit a public comment (contact information is on the last page.)
And if you're not in CA, make sure you're on the email list for your board. This will allow you to track legislation for your state, comment and shape priorities.
- Moral Injury added to the DSM
According to the Moral Injury project:
Listed under Z65.8 Moral, Religious, or Spiritual Problem, it highlights “experiences that disrupt one’s understanding of right and wrong, or sense of goodness of oneself, others or institutions.”
I'm going to dive deeper into this in the future but as of right now, it looks like we'll have a way to record when someone's dealing with a real crisis of self, their work, or their settings.
This is not a new diagnosis, and I do not think it pathologizes a human emotion. Instead, putting it in the z-codes allows us to be specific about the contributing factors to someone's clinical presentation (depression, panic disorder, etc.). - Yet another unhelpful and inaccurate "explanation" for autism.
A theory that Tylenol use was the cause of autism spread through the news last week.
If you have clients on the spectrum, caregivers of children with autism, or pregnant women on your caseload, please please please pack extra compassion.
There are only a few evidence-based explanations for the rise in autism diagnoses, including the expanded DSM-5 criteria and genetic factors. Other explanations may exist, but many, like vaccines and tylenol, have been debunked.
You can do a quick read of the APA's statement on autism here.
And if you have some time to listen on your commute or during your paperwork time, I highly recommend this layman's overview for how the "vaccines cause autism" myth got going here. It's a very tough listen, but it highlights just how dangerous these myths are.
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Supporter Connect and Learn: Next Monday, 10/6/25, 7pm Eastern, 4pm Pacific
Supporters will receive your invitation and link this week! We'll be talking about being strategic with choosing, using, and recording your trainings.
The goal is to help you battle the sneakiest part of burnout: questioning your competence. When you don't know how you'll get better at helping people, or how you'll get and use the training you need, you'll spend more time second guessing yourself and less time identifying and applying useful information to your caseload.
I'm excited to help you develop your plan to confidently grow your skills, and therefore your confidence and joy, in the field of helping people!
It's not too late to register, support Working Phase and join us here!
Can't wait to see you next week!
Sending light to you and your clients,
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