Yes, those things are true, but it’s kind of like an ACAB situation.
Cops are unionized and work as a team. Ultimately, most therapists work by themselves. Not to mention that systematic abuse of power gives cops that reputation. Which is a hard argument to make for therapists.
So I don’t really think the comparison applies here. If you feel you were wronged: since it’s a licensed profession, there is a board you can report to. It varies by state, though. If what they did was especially egrigious in terms of the rules in your state, you can get their license revoked.
Short of that, you can be as terrible a therapist as long as you can keep getting clients.
A license is to make sure they follow the laws and regulations of their state. Not to make sure they are “a good therapist”. The license is to meet a minimum bar of quality and from there make sure they stay in good standing with laws. Just like how a driver’s license can be given to people of varying skill levels.
The closest aspect to your scenario is a therapist’s rating and testimony. Most services (if not, a 3rd party website) will have a review board for such thigs to read and a scathing review can be a softer way to damage their reputation than the licensing board.
That tells me that professionalization of therapy isn’t being done to help and protect clients, but to help and protect therapists.
If you look at any job cynically enough, you can apply this to anything, and anyone. A firefighter doesn’t want to put out fires, they want to protect their job. An athlete doesn’t care about the game, they just want to be famous and get sponsors. [insert literally any job ever] is only doing it for the paycheck.
At the end of the day, it come down to trust. if you can’t trust your professional, you shouldn’t hire them. That’s for all of life. But your lack of trust alone isn’t enough to invalidate an entire field.
I bring an ACAB because ACAB means that even “good cops” will lie to protect bad cops, and they will certainly not call out other cops or report them. Though therapy is regulated, it operates in much the same manner. Therapists are interdependent and to call out another therapist would have professional ramifications.
It’s not as BAD a situation as ACAB, but at the very least therapists have been SOCIALIZED to shut the fuck up, or they have to get through 2 years of higher ed, and 2 years of practicum to get their license, years were they entirely dependent on the good graces of other social workers
And it’s funny you should bring up firefighters. Fightfighting houses notoriously would START fires so they could put them out and get paid. It was only when municipalities started hiring permanent full time fire departments that the arson stopped. Therapists still have financial pressures.
You say licensing boards are there to meet a “minimum standard of quality.” But what I just said that it does NOTHING for quality, just limits the amount of outright abuse (usually sexual). That is to say, a therapist can absolutely ruin the lives of every single one of the clients, but as long as they don’t sleep with them or use them to clean their houses, they will never run into a problem at a licensing board. And I invited you to see for yourself.
I don’t trust therapists for my own personal reasons, but I’ve laid a pretty systemic comprehensive case that therapy as a profession is extremely flawed (elsewhere in this thread): people are trained to learn facts and be experts in a way that can definitely hurt their work with clients while at the same time enhancing their prestige among other therapists. Meanwhile, the licensure system does nothing to set a floor for therapeautic quality or effective care. Meanwhile, bad therapists are out there ruining people lives, potentially even UNAWARE that they are doing it all without any repercussions from the profession.
Again, not that you can’t find a good therapist out there or that it’s not helpful, but as a profession that are several ways it’s not the same as, say, being a cardiologist.
Cops are unionized and work as a team. Ultimately, most therapists work by themselves. Not to mention that systematic abuse of power gives cops that reputation. Which is a hard argument to make for therapists.
So I don’t really think the comparison applies here. If you feel you were wronged: since it’s a licensed profession, there is a board you can report to. It varies by state, though. If what they did was especially egrigious in terms of the rules in your state, you can get their license revoked.
A license is to make sure they follow the laws and regulations of their state. Not to make sure they are “a good therapist”. The license is to meet a minimum bar of quality and from there make sure they stay in good standing with laws. Just like how a driver’s license can be given to people of varying skill levels.
The closest aspect to your scenario is a therapist’s rating and testimony. Most services (if not, a 3rd party website) will have a review board for such thigs to read and a scathing review can be a softer way to damage their reputation than the licensing board.
If you look at any job cynically enough, you can apply this to anything, and anyone. A firefighter doesn’t want to put out fires, they want to protect their job. An athlete doesn’t care about the game, they just want to be famous and get sponsors. [insert literally any job ever] is only doing it for the paycheck.
At the end of the day, it come down to trust. if you can’t trust your professional, you shouldn’t hire them. That’s for all of life. But your lack of trust alone isn’t enough to invalidate an entire field.
I bring an ACAB because ACAB means that even “good cops” will lie to protect bad cops, and they will certainly not call out other cops or report them. Though therapy is regulated, it operates in much the same manner. Therapists are interdependent and to call out another therapist would have professional ramifications.
It’s not as BAD a situation as ACAB, but at the very least therapists have been SOCIALIZED to shut the fuck up, or they have to get through 2 years of higher ed, and 2 years of practicum to get their license, years were they entirely dependent on the good graces of other social workers
And it’s funny you should bring up firefighters. Fightfighting houses notoriously would START fires so they could put them out and get paid. It was only when municipalities started hiring permanent full time fire departments that the arson stopped. Therapists still have financial pressures.
You say licensing boards are there to meet a “minimum standard of quality.” But what I just said that it does NOTHING for quality, just limits the amount of outright abuse (usually sexual). That is to say, a therapist can absolutely ruin the lives of every single one of the clients, but as long as they don’t sleep with them or use them to clean their houses, they will never run into a problem at a licensing board. And I invited you to see for yourself.
I don’t trust therapists for my own personal reasons, but I’ve laid a pretty systemic comprehensive case that therapy as a profession is extremely flawed (elsewhere in this thread): people are trained to learn facts and be experts in a way that can definitely hurt their work with clients while at the same time enhancing their prestige among other therapists. Meanwhile, the licensure system does nothing to set a floor for therapeautic quality or effective care. Meanwhile, bad therapists are out there ruining people lives, potentially even UNAWARE that they are doing it all without any repercussions from the profession.
Again, not that you can’t find a good therapist out there or that it’s not helpful, but as a profession that are several ways it’s not the same as, say, being a cardiologist.