If you are self-described “life coach” or “pastor” without formal training and licensure within the mental health field, I am writing to you in the hopes that you cease and desist advising people immediately. You see, mental health practitioners become licensed through academic training, real world internships, and then formal testing through which they demonstrate their knowledge and abilities. Furthermore, in the State of NM, licensed practitioners must complete at least 40 hours of continuing education in order to remain licensed (6 of those hours must be in Ethics). Neither life coaches or pastors have any type of formal oversight of which I’m aware and within that lack of oversight there is a large risk of iatrogenisis.
Iatrogenesis is basically when a person is harmed through treatment. This term derives from the medical field. For example, if a patient develops sepsis after surgery, the surgery was iatrogenic, as it introduced harm. In terms of mental health, I provide the following examples:
I recently watched a local “pastor,” provide counsel to a young man over dinner at a restaurant. As they spoke of the young man’s problems, I heard the pastor reference various bible passages that, I assume, pertained to the young man’s problem. I could feel my blood boil as this pastor said things that were completely in left field. Because I know the local pastor’s background, I can safely say that he is not a licensed mental health practitioner, nor has he completed (at least when I was first introduced to him a few years ago) any type of formal Divinity training. This dude simply woke up one day and decided that he was somehow anointed and started a “church.”
A client introduced me to this “pastor” in session. Turns out, my client had been kicked out of that pastor’s church for showing up drunk one day to services. My client felt deeply shunned and, while I don’t think he should’ve been drunk at a gathering, I agreed that the shunning wasn’t helpful or “Christian” in any way, shape or form. Shame is part of the cycle of Addiction and when this “pastor” kicked him out, my client was deeply shamed and lost faith in his “church.”
The pastor’s actions were “iatrogenic” because my client was attending that church in the hopes of finding spiritual comfort. Instead, all he found was what he perceived as hatred. This hatred, while unintentional, was obviously harmful to my client. It takes a lot of work to overcome shame and when a pastor adds shame, that only interferes with healthy development.
On another occasion, I had a client tell me about a life coach who specialized in parenting who told her that it’s perfectly ok to spank her child with a wooden spoon. I immediately informed my client that it’s never ok to strike a child, especially with an instrument of any kind. Striking a child with a wooden spoon amounts to child abuse. However, when I researched the credentialing agency to file a complaint against this “life coach,” I learned that there was no such agency. The life coach’s “credentials” weren’t worth the paper they were printed on. I met with the Counseling and Therapy Practice Board administrator to see what, if anything, could be done, and learned that there was nothing anyone could do. This life coach was free to provide harmful and abusive advice without any personal or professional consequences. Not only could this life coach provide iatrogenic advice, but she could do it completely without personal risk.
Therefore, I am writing in hopes that life coaches and pastors who aren’t formally trained or licensed to please stop providing mental health advice, immediately. If you want to provide this type of service, get a bachelor’s degree, attend graduate school, complete a practicum and internship, pass a licensing exam, and then obtain a license. Otherwise, although your intentions may be good, you are probably causing more harm than doing good.
Photo credit: Iatros By The Peytel Arybalos, – Louvre, Dpt.des Antiquites Grecques/Romaines, Paris, Public Domain
