Why don't Boards of Psychology regulate / shut down life coaching?

[voyeurofthemind]

I'm in the home stretch towards licensure and these hoops have been endless. Multiple hurdles, multiple fees etc. I understand the need to protect the public but how is it that life coaches can hang a shingle and not be touched by any sort of regulatory board?

The CA BOP defines the practice of psychology as: "providing psychological service involving the application of psychological principles, methods, and procedures of understanding, predicting, and influencing behavior.

Can anyone explain how coaching would fall out of this definition and be exempt?

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Members don't see this ad.

 

[MCParent]

It's really hard to enforce those kinds of rules. The rules are made by committees in the professions who have an idea of what they mean, but how is that supposed to be interpreted legally? What ISNT "a procedure for influencing behavior"?
The AMA can't shut down the innumerable providers who sell snake oil and seem pretty clearly to be giving direct medical advice, either, so it's not like it's only our problem.

 

[deleted343839]

I'm in the home stretch towards licensure and these hoops have been endless. Multiple hurdles, multiple fees etc. I understand the need to protect the public but how is it that life coaches can hang a shingle and not be touched by any sort of regulatory board? Maybe a larger portion of the efforts by boards shouldn't be so focused on initial gate keeping, but actually cleaning up the market of unauthorized practice.

I disagree that we should put less emphasis on gatekeeping. It's a real problem for our profession.

I also don't know what you mean by "unauthorized practice." Life coaches are out there peddling advice, probably a mixture of good and bad, to people who may or may not benefit from it. So are psychics, faith healers, gurus, etc. They're trying to influence behavior (maybe), but they're not practicing psychology.

 

[deleted760483]

Life coaching doesn't fall under that definition because they are not claiming to provide psychological services. They make no claims to apply psychological principles. They are essentially offering paid advice. It's sort of like a licensed physical therapist vs an "athletics consultant."

 

[smalltownpsych]

I don't worry about encroachment from life coaches. I worry more about flooding the market with poorly trained practitioners coming from diploma mill type programs or midlevels with online doctorates pretending to be the same as a psychologist.

 

[Jake0006]

Pretty ironic that there's an ad for "life coach programs" on the thread

 

[deleted343839]

Pretty ironic that there's an ad for "life coach programs" on the thread

The ads you see may depend on your browsing habits.

But yeah, as a general rule SDN doesn't filter out ads from lousy training programs. I see ads for Caribbean medical schools on the SDN home page all the time.

 

[Jake0006]

The ads you see may depend on your browsing habits.

But yeah, as a general rule SDN doesn't filter out ads from lousy training programs. I see ads for Caribbean medical schools on the SDN home page all the time.

Lol, well I'm not browsing for a life-coaching program, I can say that for certain!

 

[foreverbull]

I cannot resist! If you watch the whole thing, you'll see why it relates.