Good Mental Health Experience- Terrible room for growth. - Clinical Assistant III Paradigm Treatment Employee Review

Amazing job to work at .

No cons are necessary for this job.

Beautiful location, free food, highly rewarding population, fairly competitive pay, and some truly wonderful coworkers. I gained a lot of valuable mental health experience here.

Leadership and culture were the main issue during my time here. In addition to virtually nonexistent training (a huge red flag), the organization seems to favor a very specific type of clinician who will conform without hesitation to its expectations, which often felt ethically ambiguous or overly authoritarian. If you don’t fit this particular mold, it will likely be difficult for you to succeed here. The main leadership here has empathy issues and very noticeable compassion fatigue. Everyone excluding their favorites is expendable to them. It's actually quite sad. I was also frequently pressured to do or recommend things that went against my education, experience, training, and values. Paradigm expects therapists to act as both clinical assistants and therapists (including personally administering medication to clients), which is not properly disclosed in listed job duties or interviews and is virtually unheard of in this field. In addition to being a huge cause of burnout, this dual role created confusion for clients and required therapists to engage in inherently anti-therapeutic tasks, such as policing what clients wore. We were regularly told that it’s bad for clients to like you and that if they do, it means “you’re doing something wrong.” When I voiced concerns or struggled due to the lack of support, I felt my credibility was unfairly questioned and that I was seen as a problem employee, something I've never been at past jobs. Minor issues were penalized disproportionately for some staff, while others faced far less scrutiny for similar or more serious concerns. There was a lack of consistency in how expectations and consequences were applied. Favoritism and bias was a consistent theme, with certain staff and clients clearly receiving more opportunities, training, and protection than others. I worked with multiple clinicians here who were openly bigoted, and whose concerning biases and behavior towards staff and clients alike in this regard were never appropriately dealt with. Leadership does not care. The environment felt highly political and often more competitive than collaborative, with cliques, bullying, and gossip severely impacting team cohesion. Therapists can expect to be overworked and underpaid, receive little to no positive recognition (unless considered a favorite), and work under absentee leadership with minimal support. It’s not a great place to grow and is a haven for burnout. The turnover was the highest I’ve personally seen in a workplace. If you put a premium on authenticity, a healthy therapeutic alliance, and ethics, I strongly encourage you to apply to another setting where they prioritize similar values.