"I Decided To Quit Counseling and Be a Coach Instead"

...He said after 30 years as a counselor.

"Well, coaching isn't regulated or licensed, so I can just go there and do what I want as long as I don't use counseling techniques."

This is a common statement among many colleagues seeking to escape the schizophrenic and ironically unethical regulations put forth by licensing boards and state and Federal governments.

Fair enough!

Counselors and other mental health professionals work under a system that's catastrophically broken and injected with fear and want to be able to put their skills to good use helping others without the threat of being sanctioned because of a number of regulations for which the only decision is to hurt their clients or put themselves in professional jeopardy.

One example of this is the "mandated reporter" requirement. I'm not going too far into this right now, but the prevailing wisdom among professionals is, "I report questionable cases so I don't lose my license or go to jail."

One such questionable case I heard about was this:

A counselor was working with a teen client. The teen client tells the counselor, "my dad hit me last night." The counselor asks for more information and the teen told him, "I mouthed off to my mom, and dad slapped me across the face."

The counselor was petrified with fear and confusion: Was this father's response reasonable under the circumstances? Was this abuse? What does the law say about it? Knowing the complete and utter nightmare of an operation that CPS is, is the child going to end up in a worse situation than at home if CPS intervenes? If she doesn't report it, and someone else finds out (like a teacher or doctor) and they find out she didn't report it, will she be prosecuted for not reporting it as a mandated reporter? If she does report it, she protects her license, it is reasonable to believe that the teen client's life is worsened. A nightmare scenario indeed!

Because of scenarios like this, and countless other ethical and legal considerations, many counselors have let their licenses lapse and moved to "coaching" instead. Or they leave their licenses in a drawer and take payments through another payment processing system and only use "coaching techniques" not saying any of the counseling words. Like switching between two different hats changes the legal ramifications. Even having to consider doing this is insanity. It's the same person, but the person has to change behavior and speech depending on what they call themselves in that particular moment.

Counselors spend 2.5 years in grad school, and another 3,000 hours in supervision in order to earn a license. Then to find out that the system is so bass ackwards that it's a professional and personal liability to stay in, and that they have to pivot to something somewhat related but with new certifications and skills just so they can keep food on the table.

The bottom line is, I put thousands of hours of time, immeasurable energy, and tens of thousands of dollars into building a career as a counselor, a profession entirely consisting of speech, and I have every right to not want to do it all over again.

I especially have the right to not want to switch careers because some government bureaucrats with nothing better to do want to keep creating blatantly unconstitutional regulations because they are on a power trip.

(Did I mention that Texas BHEC spends $5.3Million annually policing 93,000 professionals and only manage to find only 20 licensees per year who did anything Texas BHEC didn't like, things that aren't even necessarily illegal?)

Thankfully, the Constitution is clear and the Supreme Court of the United States has affirmed in several cases, here, here, here, here, and here, that no license is required to exercise your right to free speech even if money is exchanged in the practice of that free speech (Murdock v. Pennsylvania, and Nifla v. Becerra).