"But, the Licensing Boards Provide a Valuable Service and Keep the Public Safe."

This has been said to me by counselors and non-counselors alike, but there are two aspects to examine in this statement.

1) Do the licensing regulations/codes/statutes (which are not laws) actually keep the general public "safe"?

2) Does the licensing board or any government entity have the legal authority to keep people "safe" in questions of speech?

Let's examine the first question chronologically. Where does one begin the path to becoming a counselor? In graduate school. What is the goal of graduate schools (or any institution of higher education)? To enroll students, which is how they make money. they don't get paid extra when students graduate, although I'm sure the professors want to see their students graduate. That isn't the school's priority though. The longer a student enrolls and doesn't graduate, the more money a school makes.

Since enrollment is the goal, not graduation/success, schools have lowered their entrance requirements, thus admitting a lower standard of student. Some of my classmates were functionally illiterate, and some seemed potentially unable to answer the question, "how would you feel this afternoon if you didn't eat breakfast this morning?"

Mind you, a huge percentage of mental health practitioners aren't going to Harvard, they're going to state schools, often balancing the quality of the program with the lowest cost, or even just going to whatever is local and can be balanced with current work schedules.

Aside from the students, there is an accreditation entity called Council for Accreditation of Counseling & Related Educational Programs (CACREP) which is held as the industry standard for graduate counseling programs. Aside from what appears to stem from a desire to create uniformity in counseling standards across the country, CACREP seems also to be a sort of textbook cartel in which, if I recall correctly, a very large percentage of my textbooks were written by the same two authors. Absolutely nothing written by some of the more famous clinicians on the various counseling-related subjects and skills. We researched that for ourselves, but it didn't seem that the quality of the student's thought was particularly important, just that students did completed the assignment and checked the right boxes, even if it was largely just regurgitation.

After graduating, the student is then on his own or her own to find suitable placement, and a supervisor, for which to earn the 2,000-3,000 hours to move from LPC-Associate or Intern into "full licensure". Supervisors ranged drastically in quality and skill. If CACREP is the standard of education, that education is quickly irrelevant depending on the supervisor and placement. The supervisor is licensed by the state, and must check a number of boxes to reach that status. The requirements don't seem to do anything to determine intelligent thought or personal virtue.

After post-graduation internship is complete, the counselor is free to hang a shingle.

As long as the counselor doesn't get caught sleeping with a client or unfairly taking advantage of clients in other ways, takes the proper number of CEUs every two years, and files paperwork on time, the counselor will largely be free of legal problems.

The quality of approved CEUs ranges widely, and there is no state standard determining what is good counseling practice and what is bad counseling practice. The state isn't mandating that CBT be phased out and replaced with Image Transformation Therapy because the latter is far superior to the former in producing the desired results. The state board that licenses clinicians to help minors overcome identifying as "transgender" is the same state board that licenses clinicians to help minors start hormone therapy and have surgeries to live the "transgender" lifestyle. No matter which ideological side you fall on with this issue, you can see the irreconcilable contradiction which renders the "safety" argument null and void.

The dirty little secret about counseling is that in the case of many counselors, almost no one actually gets healed. Clients have high points and low points, but everything is in a continuous state of "in progress".

Side note: There is actually a way to heal or resolve the root causes of trauma, neglect, and compulsive behaviors for good. Visit TheFreedomClinic.net to learn more.

In all of this counseling formation that each budding professional undergoes, not a single time is the mental health of the counseling neophyte evaluated except maybe by observation of the supervisor if any major red flags arise and are problematic enough for the supervisor to intervene AND if the supervisor has the assertiveness and moral clarity and uprightness to bring it up. Considering that supervision in many states is only 1 hour per week, it seems unlikely that a supervisor will notice much in the way of mental health issues if the supervisee does not bring it up.

One day, that supervisee becomes a full-fledged counselor. There is no oversight to make sure the counselor is effective, and the only measures to ensure "safety" from being taken advantage of comes after the complaint is made by the client. Of course, that's the case for all crimes. Generally-speaking, safety is an illusion, and it might actually be helpful for the government to encourage the general public how to select a good counselor instead of implying that being licensed keeps the public safe.

The second question presented above: Does the licensing board or any government entity have the legal authority to keep people "safe" in questions of speech?

The Constitution of the United States, and Supreme Court have been clear on this point, which has been covered here and here, that speech of private men and women, and speech by (mental health and medical) professionals, is protected except for false statements in advertising and for informed consent before a procedure (e.g. surgery).

(Other limitations exist that are not relevant to mental health, so they will not be covered here.)

If the state doesn't have the authority to provide oversight and regulation of counseling, then do we just get rid of all counseling standards?

That's an excellent question, and the topic of a future post.