Is a psychologist better than a therapist? (And no, they’re not the same thing)
Marketing in the mental health industry is.... interesting.
This may feel mildly uncomfortable for those in the industry to read.
Or maybe you've noticed it too.
But in the interest of better informing the public about what services they are actually buying, this discussion is badly overdue.
example of misleading marketing in therapy #1 (true story)
And before anyone gets the hump or gets paranoid - NO I'm not talking about any of my connections in this specific anecdote.
The situation is this (and I will keep the details vague, as I do not want the individual to be harassed or doxed; I share this to illustrate a principle):
A therapist was advertising her services. She positioned herself as an integrative psychotherapist, and a BPS (British Psychological Society) accredited psychologist. She was marketing herself towards the neurodivergent community, emphasising her lived experience in Autism & ADHD.
The therapist sounded good on paper - she said all the right things.
When it came to the session, there were numerous breaches of ethics, including:
The therapist saying "you can talk about your past trauma if you want to... but I'd rather you didn't"
The therapist setting her own goals for the (autistic) client - saying "work on getting sociable"
When the client shared a scenario about her neurodivergent child, the therapist said that the child's behaviour 'scared her' - centring her own feelings, even though the client herself said that she didn't feel this way
When the client wrote to end therapy, saying that she felt unsafe and judged, the therapist did not apologise and said "clients who prefer the safety of the person-centred approach.... tend to not like the way I work"
Excuse me?
A therapist who says that clients who prefer safety - may not like the way she works.
No shit.
(The client was me, by the way).
After some sleuthing, it came to light that:
Although this therapist advertised herself as a BPS accredited psychologist... she was, but in Occupational Psychology
She used the fact she had a bachelor's and master's in Psychology to try and gain trust with clients - without emphasising that her qualifications were not in a relevant area.
If you are reading this, then I'd like you to know:
Occupational Psychology is not a licence to practice therapy or counselling with anyone.
Likewise - there are a ton of other 'BPS accredited' certifications which allow people to use the fancy-sounding term of 'Chartered Psychologist' - but let's break that down for more specificity. Please note: only Clinical and Counselling Psychologists are trained in how to do therapy / counselling.
All other BPS accredited certifications are NOT therapeutic qualifications. This includes accredited Educational Psychologists, Forensic Psychologists, Health Psychologists, Occupational Psychologists, Coaching Psychologists, Sport/Exercise Psychologists or Research Psychologists
That's a hell of a lot of psychologists who are not trained to work therapeutically with the public - but who potentially out there, advertising their services (often, with a healthy uplift in fee) - trading on the cache and prestige of the 'psychologist' label.
Therapy seekers - know what you're getting into.
As I've mentioned in the previous blog - the field of therapy and coaching is a hot (unregulated) mess right now. Anyone can set up shop and call themselves a therapist or a psychologist. Anyone with a dab hand at marketing and Canva graphics, can build up a massive following and start charging for their services.
And - I'm not even sure that regulation is the answer. The path is too full of contradictory 'governing bodies' - which causes even more confusion for the public.
But the path gets even more confusing when we have people with masters degrees, or "Dr." in front of their name attempting to position their services as superior due to their (unrelated) accreditations or perceived authority.
How is a member of the public seeking therapeutic services meant to know? If someone says 'Chartered Psychologist' - sounds legit, right?
This may appear a big, long rant over one unfortunate incident with a really shit therapist and misleading qualifications.
However it's endemic and so much bigger than one individual (unfortunately).
Because I'm seeing groups and programmes and support set up by 'Chartered Psychologists' - without those psychologists actually being transparent about the nature of their experience and work.
More 'regulation' isn't going to fix this problem; the people involved in these examples are already regulated.
It's just that the field is so impenetrable, that a member of the public, seeking therapy, counselling or mental health support could easily be mislead as to the level of clinically relevant expertise that an individual actually has.
what we need is not more regulation - we need more transparency, simplicity and honesty.
We need therapists, psychologists, and counsellors to be up front about their expertise, their clinical experience and to frame it in a way that is simple and easy for their clients to understand.
I am not arguing that people need to jump through more hoops in order to be able to practice as a therapist.
I am arguing that people should be clear about their scope of experience.
Are you a peer support worker, with ZERO qualifications, but bagfulls of lived experience, perhaps running support groups, and accompanying others 1:1? Cool. Name it. Live it.
Are you a researcher (or maybe even one of those psychologists who has earned the fancy 'Dr.' prefix in an non-clinical field) with a keenness to work 1:1 with the public. Please fucking own it and for the love of God, don't pretend that you have any training in therapy and counselling.
Are you a non-traditional therapist who incorporates spirituality, tarot, astrology into your work? Beautiful! Werk it - and be transparent about it.
Customer choice can only work if the customer has transparency about what they are choosing.
But if psychologists and therapists are jam jars, and some of those jam jars are labeled 'Dr. [accredited psychologist]' or 'Masters in Psychology' - but they actually have Marmite inside - then please don't tell the public you are selling jam.
Here endeth today's sermon.
Thank you for being here with me in this space - Reimagining Therapy - so that we make therapeutic support accessible, ethical, and easy to understand.
P.S. If you want to find out more about my work (including the no holds barred, no sugarcoating list of my creds) - it's all on the homepage (scroll to the FAQ at the bottom)
P.P.S. It's bollocks that it needs to be said - but in an age of so much regurgitated, bloated, AI crap, I want to emphasise that ChatGPT was not used to write this article. This piece and all it's imperfections are real, created by my human hands and human heart.
