Helping People Find Therapists & Advocating for Ethical Therapy
Poll - Spring 2011
Are you in favor of state licensing boards requiring pre-licensed therapists to undergo psychotherapy as part of licensure requirements, assuming all potential issues are addressed and adequately resolved prior to implementing such a requirement?
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Dear Respondent,
Thanks for taking part in this poll. As a longtime advocate for reducing harm in psychotherapy, I was pleased to see the large number of therapists in favor of such a requirement. My operating belief is that the more training, consultation, and personal psychotherapy a therapist does, the less likely he or she will be to cause harm, to abuse power, or get their own needs met at the expense of their clients. However, the troubling reality is that there are practicing therapists who have never experienced therapy for themselves. This reality is what lies behind GoodTherapy.org's effort to gather more information from respondents like you and to see if there's anything our organization can do to improve the quality of psychotherapeutic care.
The poll results, especially respondent notes in the Comments section, have been extremely helpful, not just in gauging the level of support for making a change in licensure requirements, but in outlining the potential pitfalls inherent in such a change. Even though a clear majority of respondents were in favor of requiring pre-licensed therapists to undergo therapy of their own, those respondents who were not in favor of this requirement raised some very important and valid concerns which should be addressed. In an effort to address these concerns, GoodTherapy.org has conducted a qualitative analysis of the comments made by those who answered NO or MAYBE to the poll. The analysis yielded seven general categories of arguments against requiring pre-licensed therapists to undergo their own psychotherapy, and they are as follows:
- Therapy Must be Warranted by Illness
- Effectiveness As a Therapist May Not be Directly Linked with Having Done Therapy
- Not all Therapy is Created Equal - How to Assure Quality Control?
- People Should Not be Forced to Undergo Therapy
- Therapy Requirements Are Better Regulated at the Graduate School Level
- Monetary Cost Associated with Mandatory Therapy is a Potential Hardship
- Confidentiality Issues Are a Consideration
Over the next eight weeks, I will present summaries of, and possible solutions to, each argument against having pre-licensed therapists undergo their own therapy to meet state licensure requirements. It is my hope that you will get involved, share your ideas, and be part of the process of improving the quality of psychotherapy services. Below I've addressed the first argument against requiring pre-licensed therapists to undergo therapy. Please visit the following web page and leave your remarks: Therapy Must be Warranted by Illness
Kind Regards,
Noah Rubinstein, LMFT, Founder and CEO
GoodTherapy.org
200 West 34th Avenue, Suite 501
Anchorage, Alaska 99503
Comments
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The issue is: what kind of therapy? For what purpose? Who decides if the candidate has been honest? If knowing the licensing capability hangs in the balance, who is going to be honest/forthcoming? What about confidentiality? Therapists have to give up medical confidentiality? These are important issues, and I don't believe they could be resolved. This will only give a false sense of security, but some candidates will have lied, others ruled out unnecessarily for honesty.
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I received my master's in Counseling at the University of North Texas. A requirement of our admissions seminar was to undergo therapy with a practicum student. (I forget how many sessions.) This seemed like a good idea to me as the practicum supervisors were able to look over the mental health of those requesting admission to the program and refer out those them thought needed more intensive therapy before they started the program.
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EVERY therapist or therapist-to-be "should" have some form of on-going process of personal exploration, most likely that will be psychotherapy. It needs to be a part of the educational expectation and then a part of the regular maintainence of the therapist's sense of health and wholeness. It is risky for the "state" to monitor/manage this necessary expectation. It should more likely come from the professional association of which that therapist is a member.
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absolutely right on.
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absolutely right on.
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I have been a therapist for over 30 years. My own therapy has been essential to my being a quality wholistic psychotherapist
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I am not in favor of mandatory anything but there might be a certification earned or some other incentive for what should clear happen.
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While I think therapy can be beneficial, I would not want to give this as a mandate to a government agency.
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I think it is essential that all Psychotherapists have undergone personal psychotherapy for a range of reasons. Self Awareness supports our own self care, boundary setting, understanding of transference and counter tranference. I also think we need to know what it is like to be the client, to understand the courage it takes to attend therapy and to appreciate the experience of inner work, how we like to be treated in order that we do no harm, avoid being "the expert" and respect the clients inner resources in the process of therapy.
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I supervise and train therapists learning to work with complex trauma. It is essential in this work to have awareness and basic mastery of one's own issues.
